I'll Catch Up to You
by itswallie
Summary: YJAM Prompt: Nightwing goes back in time to secretly save the YJ team during a difficult case they wouldn't have otherwise made it through. But it looks like he might have a special message for Wally! KFxNightwing
1. Part I: Birdarang

_**YJAM Prompt Fill:** Ok, so if you've seen Misfits you know about Superhoodie, and my prompt is that kind of scenario. Nightwing goes back in time to help the YJ team out of some situations that, ordinarily, they would have been SOL in, but since Nightwing was there to randomly help them or give them hints or whatever, they make it through. Everyone's like "WHO THE FUCK IS THAT" and they have no idea who he is or why he's doing this. up to writer where it goes from here. Nightwing/KF comes in to play when Nightwing approaches Wally alone and is like "~we're together in the future~" and reveals that he's Dick from the future and they bone. _

_yj-anon-meme. livejournal. com/3209 .htm l?thread= 5495689#t5495689_

_I also made art of what I think Dick and Wally look like in the future! _**_**http :/tinyurl . com / 429wn8c**_**_ _

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><p><em>As you can tell from the prompt, there's definitely KFxRobin slash! It won't show up for a couple of chapters, and yes, Robin's way older as Nightwing, so there's that. I <strong>may need<strong> to up the rating to M later on. I'll try to keep the sexay chapters skip-able, because this is heavy on the plot as well, and it would be sweet if everyone who wants to can read it. :) Rated T for swearing and, eventually, boys kissing._

**_Since I don't want to give anything away, the light slash warning stands for EVERY chapter. This is to say, there may be kissing at any time (lol), but _nothing_ more than that. If there's more, I'll put a slash warning on. Is that ok? _**

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><p>Wally couldn't breathe, and he suspected that one of his ribs was breaking. He shuddered and vibrated, but the heat and friction he generated didn't bother the Kryptonian in the least - Superboy just growled and squeezed Wally's torso harder. Miss Martian guarded the giant doors of the hanger-sized warehouse that led to the ski slopes beyond, and Aqualad circled around her, moving gingerly over the snow blowing inside. He did his best to engage and distract his brain-washed teammate, but she deflected his water attacks almost casually. On the other side of the room, Artemis struggled to outmaneuver Robin, but he had her cornered behind a pile of battered red ski lift chairs. Her bows weren't very effective at close range - and Robin <em>was<em>. Maybe even deadly. His laughed echoed throughout the warehouse, and for the first time, Wally was _really _creeped out by it.

It was a thoroughly uneven match, though not the least because the three sober ones held back considerably to avoid hurting their friends.

"Supey," Wally wheezed one more time, "Supey, it's _us_. You've got a mind-control …"

Superboy crushed the last of Wally's breath out of him, and he wilted, gasping. The squall outside was terrible, and another one of the windows busted open. Chunks of ice and rock sifted in.

Robin carefully paced around Artemis as she scrambled up an industrial-sized snowblower to gain distance and higher ground on the acrobat. As soon as she cleared the floor, Aqualad yelled at her: "Aim for the device on Superboy's neck! If you miss he won't be hurt!"

Artemis snorted. "Like I'll miss," she said dismissively under her breath.

She drew a green arrow and took aim at the back of Superboy's neck where the device was embedded. Wally, who had been fading in and out of consciousness, snapped back to life. He was inches away from the blinking green box.

"_Dude_, don't aim arrows at my _head_!" he squeaked.

"Don't whine, Baywatch," Artemis said, and let the arrow fly. It was a perfect shot.

Until Robin stepped in front of it to take it in the chest.

Everyone froze, except Wally, who recovered almost instantly. He kicked and vibrated like there was no tomorrow; Superboy's skin began to smoke.

A tiny projectile whizzed down from the catwalks in the ceiling. Inches before the arrowhead embedded itself into Robin's heart, the blade sliced the shaft in half, knocking it off-course. The arrow cut his uniform open, but as it deflected to the side, it left only a scratch - a deep one, but just a scratch nonetheless - across his breast. Robin barely noticed and continued to advance on Artemis, giggling ominously.

Wally, Artemis, and Aqualad's eyes shot up toward the source of the weapon, but they couldn't see anything - and they had more pressing concerns. Robin had grabbed Artemis's ankle and tripped her; she barely kept him at bay with her bow. M'gann had tossed Aqualad across the room, and Wally was starting to wonder how long it would take to heal from two punctured lungs and a crushed heart. _Two weeks? Eternity?_

His hair ruffled in a breeze as someone - or something - flew just behind Superboy's head.

"Yoink."

The mind-control box crackled as it was half-ripped from the nape of Superboy's neck. Superboy groaned and collapsed onto his knees. As Wally scrambled to avoid his crushing weight, he rolled on the floor until he could see the ceiling where the figure had disappeared. There was a whir of a retracting grappling hook and another cracking sound as the dark figure crushed the half of the device he'd disconnected underneath his boot. Unfortunately, the small flash of green light it gave off wasn't enough to illuminate the mystery man._ At least, he'd sounded like a dude._

Wally took a few deep breaths - shit, one of his lungs _might be _punctured - but he could deal. He took after Robin, who was still hunting Artemis; three more batarangs whizzed by her ears before Wally managed to get to her. Robin dodged the wounded speedster a couple of times, but Wally was still a second ahead, and he finally tackled Robin to the ground. He couldn't hold the boy down and get the device at the same time, though.

"Artemis! Help me get this thing o - oooouuffff!"

The Boy Wonder kneed him in the balls and squirmed away, giggling. As Wally doubled over, another laugh echoed through out the building - it was stifled, though; familiar and strange at the same time.

"Owowow ... not funny, dude," he growled into the darkness.

Robin had mindlessly returned to his task of subduing Artemis, and Wally stumbled to his feet, clutching his wounded ribs and, well, pride. He wasn't feeling very fast at the moment.

"Let him catch you!" called Wally weakly.

Artemis ducked under Robin's arms again. "_What?"_

"It's ok! I got you both! Just let him grab you!"

Artemis narrowed her eyes at the yellow and red boy, but she stopped running. Robin pounced on her, and Wally pounced on him. They collapsed in a struggling dogpile until Wally pinned him again, and Arty snapped off part of the device. Robin collapsed, but he didn't pass out.

"Uhng," he complained as he brought his hands to his face. "Killer headache."

Wally bent over him, massaging his aching ribs. "You ok?'

Robin looked down at his ruined uniform and the scratch across his chest. "... what the hell?"

"Kind of a weird story …" Wally began, pointing over at the strange batarang-like weapon lodged in a wooden crate.

"_Artemis! Kid Flash!" _Aqualad shouted. "Superboy and I need help subduing Miss Martian … _now!_"

Wally and Artemis helped Robin to his feet, and they headed toward the door.

In the rafters, a figure clad in black and blue was rubbing his biceps vigorously and hopping back-and-forth from foot to foot. His teeth chattered.

_Shit, _he thought. _Where are they going?_

He panicked as the trio was almost out the building. _You guys are supposed to … Dammit, what the hell?_

_Crap_. He ran through a couple of options he had, and chose the one closest to what was "supposed" to happen. His grappling gun whirred as it landed in the side of a small box on top of the crate that had his modified batarang. He dragged it off.

Robin glanced behind him in the direction of the soft clatter. He let his friends go ahead while he carefully snuck back; his eyes went wide with surprise as he noticed the bird-shaped blue batarang. Robin's gaze shot right up to where the hero hid in the darkness, and the young man held his breath. Robin didn't stop looking, though, so the figure slid closer to the wall, just in case.

_Go on, go on. _He mentally egged on the red-and-black kid below him. _You know you want it …_

Wally called for Robin again, and Robin hesitantly looked back over his shoulder. He pulled the batarang out of the crate and stashed it in his belt as he ran out the door.

_Oh thank God,_ the hero breathed. He tucked away his grappling gun and climbed out a window, huddling against the wind and snow.

_I don't remember that box falling_. He frowned. _Maybe I just forgot._

It had been a while.

_There should be a time traveller's manual for this crap. _He shivered again. _Also, why didn't I wear a damn parka the first time around?_

… he briefly wondered if a total rewrite of history would be worth risking a new coat.


	2. Part I: Rooftop

_Wow, so many nice replies and alerts already! Isn't this prompt **awesome**? Thanks to the amazing OP who came up with it! Livejournal is being weird, and it's not showing up in the individual thread for the prompt (but it shows up in that thread on the main page with all the others). Hopefully I can get it to work. I wonder if people tracking the thread can still see it. Anyway! This is consuming me, so here's more. It's like 60% done (two more chapters before the middle that's all written out)_.

**_I also made art of what I think Dick and Wally look like in the future! _**_**http :/tinyurl . com / 429wn8c**_**__**

**_Since I don't want to give anything away, the light slash warning stands for EVERY chapter. This is to say, there may be kissing at any time (lol), but _NOTHING _more than that. If there's more, I'll put a slash warning on_** .

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><p>Four hours later, the black and blue hero crouched in the green fir tree and glanced at his compact holo-watch. He pulled the mission timeline outlined in the reports he dug up before he left.<p>

_Hmm. About t-minus eleven minutes. _That should hit it.

His legs cramped as he shifted in his tiny perch. He'd stared at the open snow field in front of him for almost two-and-a-half hours. The white blanket he'd "borrowed" from one of the abandoned ski lodges nearby barely kept the frosty weather at bay, and a thermos half-filled with hot chocolate he'd also "borrowed" had stopped steaming ten minutes after he sat down. He took a sip, and the red container wobbled precariously as he balanced it again between two branches at his feet.

Night was descending; he was starting to get really cold. "Achoo!"

… _Bless me. _Another minute passed.

And another. _This is phenomenally boring._

He heard an energy blast off to his left, and a yellow-and-red figure cut through the snow at the bottom of the mountain in front of him.

_Finally_, he moaned. _Killer Frost and Mad Hatter kick things off …_

He snapped a pair of blue goggles down over his mask; they looked almost exactly like Wally's. A quick button press flipped on the binocular lenses.

_Cue KF running this way ..._

Slowed only slightly by the soft snow underneath his feet, Kid Flash loomed large in his vision. He held a black device covered in raw wiring.

_Cue exploding bomb ..._

Wally skidded to a halt in the middle of the snow field and looked desperately around him. The group was behind him, still fighting Killer Frost and Mad Hatter's goons. In front of him sat the ski lodges. To his right sat the forest, and his left the blank mountain side.

Wally frowned and dashed as hard and fast as he could up the side of the mountain, throwing the bomb as hard and high as he could at the last second.

…_aaaaaand cue mini-avalanche._

A chunk of snow slid down the side of the mountain.

_... not the best of choices, dude. But it's ok because you outran -_

The sheet of white engulfed Wally, who was clutching his side and wading just faster than human speed through the deep snow.

_... ok, you dug yourself out of ..._

The hillside stilled.

_... dig yourself ouuuutt ..._

He frowned. _Come on, come on, you were fine. Come on ..._

The ticking of his watch was deafening.

_Alright, I guess someone else dug you out?_ His heart raced.

_Punctured lung here, people! _He definitely hadn't forgotten that. _Was it me? How could it have been me? He never said anything about a stranger ..._

Still no one came by.

_Ok, I don't _freaking _ care who it was._

He dashed out of the tree, dragging the white blanket over himself to camouflage his black form scurrying across the white field. He pulled up the infrared on his goggles.

_Where the hell are you, Wally?_

A tiny red and orange dot came up in his field of black. The hero picked up the pace.

_... thank God you burn twice as bright._

The snow got softer the closer he got to Wally, and it turned slush around him as he sunk beneath the surface. Wally was face down, essentially drowning as his high temperature melted the ice around him.

_Dammit._ Wally had a pulse, but he wasn't breathing. The black-and-blue boy flipped his bright yellow friend over and tilted his chin up.

He paused, fingers shaking as he gently open the younger boy's mouth. He took one deep breath before leaning over Wally. Make that two.

_Ok, you can do this. Just keep it together._

His lips formed a seal over Wally's, and he gently breathed out, keeping one eye on the red lightning insignia to make sure it rose and fell.

_1 ... 2 … 3 … 4 … 5_

Another breath. He tasted a little like fresh limes and sugar.

_1 ... 2 … 3 … 4 … 5_

One more. He tasted _the same_.

Wally started coughing and choking on the water he'd swallowed, and the hero leaned back on his knees, panting. He did his best to ignore his tingling lips. The speedster looked up blearily, still half unconscious.

"Hi," the person over him whispered.

"Who ...?"

The sunset glowed behind the shadow; Wally couldn't quite make out the back-lit face in the twilight. If he had, he would see the young man blushing bright red.

"Am I dead?"

_Are you … what? _The figure sucked in his breath. "Not if I have anything to do with it. Come on, let's get you to the lodge. At least, I know I see you there."

He scooped the boy up in his arms and waded through the loosely packed snow, the blanket half-draped over the two of them. He heard clamoring behind them, and he made a beeline for the copse of trees nearest the rendezvous point at the lodge.

Wally groaned as he set him down underneath the evergreen. He cradled his head and set it gently against the rough tree bark.

"You ok?" he whispered.

"Yeah ... Robs is that...?"

The hero flushed and sucked in another breath. "It's Nightwing, babe."

"It's night time?" Wally's eyes drifted closed. The snow was bathed a soft pink in the evening light, and some stars twinkled above him. He gently ran his fingers through Wally's hair.

"Uh, yeah."

The rest of their troupe sifted through the snow half a field away.

"Wally, where ar-" called Miss Martian.

"Shush!" interrupted Robin. They still weren't sure where Killer Frost and the Mad Hatter were.

Nightwing glanced over his shoulder. They were almost on top of them.

"Gotta go. Take care." He silently retreated up a tree by the lodge.

Robin spotted Wally under the tree and broke into a sprint. He bent down to his semi-conscious friend, filling Nightwing's slightly larger silhouette that had hung over the wiped-out speedster a second before. Wally opened his eyes again.

The acrobat smiled. "Oh great, you made it."

Wally grinned back.

"Yeah, thanks _'babe'_," he laughed.

Robin wrinkled his brow and turned toward the others in the group. Everyone kind of shrugged in confusion.

_Ohhhh_, Nightwing realized as he eavesdropped from the tree. That's_ what that was about. Huh. Whoops. Or 'Good, I guess I got it right?'_

The sun slipped below the horizon, and Aqualad spoke up. "We've lost Mad Hatter and Killer Frost. I think it wise that we try to get some rest this evening."

"That lodge looks pretty break-into-able," Artemis commented. Robin nodded agreement. He shuffled under Wally's arm and helped him limp toward the building.

Nightwing scurried just ahead of them through the trees and over the roof, crouching down behind the chimney.

_T-minus a minute-thirty. Give or take._ He listened closely as the two boys made their way slowly toward the nearest window. Artemis and Aqualad were breaking the locks on the window below him.

Wally tripped and cradled his cracked ribs.

"You don't look too hot," commented Robin.

_Pfft_, laughed Nightwing.

"Yeah," muttered Wally. "I think I may have hurt my lung."

"Maybe we should get you back to the Batpla …"

Nightwing kicked a branch off the roof and stood up. Robin glanced up at the roof and squinted. A black figure stood by the brick chimney, haloed by the red and purple rays of the setting sun.

_Cue heroic pose ..._

Wally coughed next to Robin and caught the younger boy's attention. "No, dude … it's too …"

_One minute I'm here ..._

Nightwing started to crouch down … and he slipped on some ice just behind him.

"Ooof!" He tumbled backwards and onto the other side of the building, flailing for a hand hold.

"... dangerous," Wally continued, coughing loud enough to cover up Nightwing's fall. "I'll heal soon enough."

_Craaap._

Robin glanced up again at the roof. It was empty.

Nightwing sighed as he dangled from the gutter.

… _the next minute I'm not._


	3. Part I: Flames Part 1

_This is basically turning into a Five Times Nightwing Saves the Course of History (Or maybe more?) and One Time He Totally Rewrites It (though not necessarily in that order), haha._

_**Light slash warning still stands.**_

_**Thank you guys, so so much** for the encouraging reviews and alerts and favs! I wish I had time these days to have an in-depth conversation with all of you. _

_I do want to say that this is also kind of treatise on my thoughts about time-travel - I have charts and graphs to do my best to keep things consistent within my personal time-travel philosophy. I think about it a lot, and I hope I can get into it without getting to talky toward the end! ... I also hope I can keep track of everything, haha. We'll see._

_**_I also made art of what I think Dick and Wally look like in the future! _**_**http :/tinyurl . com / 429wn8c**_**__**  
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><p>Nightwing dangled from the humongous, sloping roof over a three story drop to the snow banks below. The edge of the roof was at least eight feet from the building; several giant wooden beams extending between the wall and gutter supported it. The thick supports had to be three feet by three feet, and there was more than enough empty space in the triangle between the wall, under the roof, and above the beams for him to fit.<p>

He swung from the gutter, back and forth, until he had the momentum to flip gracefully under, up, and over onto one of the wooden supports. Crouching, the hero padded silently toward the narrow, horizontal windows where the building met the underside of the roof.

Nightwing wiped away the grime coating one window pane and peeked in. They opened onto the main lounge. The ceiling followed the slope of the roof; it was at least 20 feet above the floor. The whole room was almost pitch black. He flipped on the night vision in his speedster-style blue goggles and saw half-a-dozen support beams crisscross from one side of lounge to the other.

Nightwing frowned thoughtfully and rubbed his freezing arms. The nearest lodge was at least a five minute walk from here on solid ground, never mind the snow.

_I don't want to go too far away._ _Uh, in case they need me._

He mentally rewound the events of this night. In fact, a lot _could_ go wrong tonight. A _lot_.

But he didn't remember a tall, dark - _handsome _- stranger joining them for s'mores around the fire.

_What if I helped, and nobody -_ _including fourteen-year-old-me - noticed? __Can I get away with it? _

They hadn't turned on the electricity to avoid getting spotted. _Darkness, check._

They'd built a very small fire. _I can see them, but not vice versa in the rafters. _

He was pretty sure everyone and everything stayed mostly on the floor.__ _No wandering people to surprise me, check._ _  
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And then there was ...

_Ok, I'm definitely going in. I can get away - I probably DID get away with it. I'll just stick to the crossbeams and corners._

He sighed. He had to be totally invisible, even if they needed his help. _Don't screw this up, Grayson._

Nightwing shook off his nerves as best he could. _No, all this worked out before, or I wouldn't even _BE_ here; it will work out again._

He pulled out a screwdriver and started unfastening the hinges along the bottom of the brown metal windowsill. Deftly sliding an arm under the window, he quietly jiggled the lock free and set the pane down on the inner beam that ran along the side of the room.

Artemis was fooling around with the fireplace; the gas seemed to be off.

"We're out of luck for heat. Maybe this place has been abandoned too long."

Robin frowned. "Our intel says that it's only been shut down for a couple of weeks."

"I guess it's time to break out the candles and blankets," Artemis shrugged.

Aquald pursed his lips with concern. "I'll check out the closets for supplies."

_Hmm. There was definitely fire. _And the gas _had _been on in the other lodge where Nightwing grabbed the blanket and hot chocolate. He backed away from the window and hurriedly leapt from beam to beam with cat-like grace in his padded tabi boots.

The gas hook-up valve around the corner was nestled in a stairwell leading to the basement. It was almost completely covered in snow; he had only been able to spot it because he was directly above the snow bank. He grappled down over the box. The gas had, indeed, been turned off here … but the handle was jammed. He didn't have the strength to turn it on.

_Dammit._

A figure approached him quickly from the far end of the lodge.

_Oh, right. _It was Superboy, sent out to do exactly what Nightwing was doing. He grappled back up the building and watched the powerful boy wade through the snow. Superboy passed the box.

_Dammit, dammit. _Nightwing scurried over to the end of one support just behind the edge of the roof. He lay down, prone on the beam, and carefully reached under the gutter and around to the snow on the rooftop. He brushed some off it to, hopefully, catch Superboy's attention. _That looks like ... happenstance, right?_

Superboy glanced back at the fallen snow and hesitantly investigated. Nightwing tucked his arms and legs up onto the beam and lay as still on his back as he could.

_Though, I guess if I'm the one who made it 'happen,' and I'm not supposed to be here, don't I really want it to just look like 'stance'?_

He squeezed his eyes shut and held his breath.

_Pay no attention to the heartbeat behind the curtain, Supey. _

Luckily, Superboy spotted the gas valve before checking out the roof. He twisted it on casually before heading back; he wasn't listening for a heartbeat that didn't belong almost three stories above his head. Even so, only after the super-powered boy rounded the corner did Nightwing sigh in relief.

Back at the window, Nightwing watched Artemis light a small, smokeless gas fire in the large central fireplace. Everyone swarmed it, rubbing their arms and hands together. _Phew._

He pushed the disconnected pane to the side and exhaled completely. The window opening was barely large enough to allow him to slide through on his back, even though he was still relatively lithe and small. _Oh, to be fourteen again. _Inside, he sealed the window with a little putty and crawled along to the beams on the edges of the room.

The acrobat eyed the Kryptonian warily. _This _was something he'd never worried about before. Superboy looked exhausted, though, and he didn't seem to notice a seventh heartbeat added the cacophony of everyone else's.

_He must just habituate and tune us all out. _Nightwing shook his head. _I don't know how he could even think through all that racket._

Aqualad returned with several blankets he'd scavenged, and Miss Martian and Superboy rooted through the kitchen for food. They all huddled by the fire and ate quietly by candlelight.

The darkness enveloped them like a protective cocoon. Nightwing was definitely unconcerned with discovery in the black rafters. It would have been picturesque under different circumstances; the yellow flames and purple shadows flickered slowly over faces, masking the exhaustion and strain of the day.

Wally finished off his portion of canned soup, crackers, and soda; he limped back to the kitchen for more. He coughed hard, shaking, almost putting out the flame on the candle he carried.

_Hmm. No_. Nightwing carefully followed him, keeping an eye on the clearly suffering boy. _Not shaking. He's vibrating._

Nightwing frowned_,_ very frustrated. _Can't do anything about it right now. _

Wally emerged from the walk-in cupboard with a box of sweet biscuit cookies.

_Augh. _Despite Nightwing's concern for his friend, the cookies were terribly distracting. It had been almost 24 hours since Nightwing had eaten; they looked delicious.

Robin joined Wally in the kitchen, grabbing a cookie or two as well. He stared intently as his yellow friend grimaced through his second cookie.

"Come here," he said, gently pulling the him over to the stove. Robin fired up the burners to take a look at the speedster. He pressed on his ribs, and Wally hissed loudly.

While Wally and Robin - _me_ - were distracted, Nightwing carefully grappled down to the cookie box and grabbed some. He solemnly munched on the treats back in his perch on the crossbeam and watched the familiar exchange.

"_Dude," _Wally groaned. He whirred in protest.

Robin frowned at the shivering boy, "Are you cold or something?"

The hand he put on Wally's forehead almost burned; if he hadn't known better, he would have thought the speedster had a fever. But he was a _speedster_, so … the temperature was probably in the right ballpark. Also, Wally didn't get infections. He dropped his hand. Unless ...

Robin pursed his lips, distraught. "We have to get that rib out of your lung. You'll be useless tomorrow if we don't."

Wally looked pained. "Really?"

"Stay here. I need to find some things." Robin marched over to the cupboard and dug around. He returned with some salt, alcohol, the biscuit cookies ... and a knife.

Wally's eyes widened. "Uh, where exactly did you get your M.D.?"

"Batman University. Look, I'm sorry we have to do this. It probably won't do any permanent damage, but I don't want to risk it," he said, brow crinkling in concern. "... biscuit?"

"I'm not a dog," Wally mumbled ... but he took the box of biscuit cookies.

It was considerably lighter than it had been a minute before. "Hey! You ate almost all of them. That's just cruel."

Robin looked annoyed. "No, I didn't. When would I even have had time?"

"Do you see any one else here?"

"You probably ate them yourself in your delirium," Robin hissed back.

Nightwing couldn't help but grin just a little. _Sorry, me._ _How many weeks did you - I - get crap for that?_

"Whatever. Fine. Let'sh get thish ov'r wih," Wally growled through the last of the sweet biscuits.

He followed Robin back to the lounge, looking a little scared, one eye trained on the sharpened knife.


	4. Part I: Flames Part 2

_So I'm just going to attach a trigger warning here that I never, ever in a million years thought that I would: **trigger!surgery**_

_It's not gory or anything (Wally doesn't even really bleed). I couldn't bring myself to write something that made _me_ that squeamish - though I guess YMMV. _

_I don't make this up, people - I just report. Ah heh._

_Light slash warning still applies! :)_

_**_I also made art of what I think Dick and Wally look like in the future! _**_**http :/tinyurl . com / 429wn8c**_**__**  
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><p>As Nightwing ninjaed his way back into the main room, Robin, all business, tucked a blanket under the speedster laying on one of the large wooden lodge tables.<p>

"Shirt off."

Wally was glad no one could see him flush in the dim light of the room as he carefully, painfully wiggled out of the upper half of his costume. The fact that he still buzzed didn't help the pain or the disrobing.

Aqualad frowned. "Surgery, Robin? Are you qualified for this sort of thing?"

"Wally won't get infected. I wouldn't even try this with anyone else," he replied. He snapped on a pair of latex gloves.

"But …" Artemis crossed her arms. "_Surgery_?"

"I prefer 'extreme field medicine'."

Robin dug through his belt for a syringe and a small vial of morphine. Sucking the entire contents of the bottle into the syringe, he sighed. "This will probably buy us about five minutes."

"Aren't I supposed to get a dinner and a movie before this sort of thing?" Wally cocked an eyebrow, glancing at the candles and the drugs.

"You're sick," Robin said flatly, tapping the syringe to remove any bubbles.

"Clearly." He wheezed out a laugh, "calling Dr. Bird Brain."

"Save it for after you're drugged up," said Artemis.

"- Kid Feeble," she added.

"Now that's just personal," whined Wally as he lay back down. He vibrated a little as Artemis shoved the blanket back under the speedster's wounded ribs.

_I don't remember you being such an inappropriate flirt, _mused Nightwing, finishing his last cookie. _Well, not at _ME, _anyway_. _Guess I should have paid closer attention._

"Hold this," Robin said to the green-clad girl. She took the syringe, and Wally gulped.

"Superboy," Robin said, "Would you hold him down?"

Superboy walked to the other side of the table and placed a hand on Wally's shoulder and his opposing hip. He knitted his brows.

"I'm sorry," he said, for both the injuries and the current situation.

"It's uh … cool," replied Wally, as he shivered erratically. "It happens."

"Ok, borrowing these," Robin said as he pulled the red goggles off Wally's head. "... _babe_," he mocked.

Wally pouted and grumbled, "... you started it."

"What? Wow, you _are _delirious." Robin snickered as he snapped them on over his mask and flipped on night vision.

Wally made a face.

Even though infection was unlikely, just to be safe, Robin sterilized the knife with the lighter and washed his hands in salt water and alcohol. After swabbing some more over Wally's broken rib, he injected the painkiller and waited a bit.

"... you ok?"

Wally nodded. "Yeesh," he drawled.

"Try to stay still."

Robin and Nightwing both took a deep breath and held it at the same time. _THIS _Nightwing definitely remembered.

The knife hovered over Wally's side for what felt like an eternity before Robin made a small incision over the injury. Wally squirmed and vibrated and yowled. Robin grimaced as he slipped one slim finger under Wally's split rib and lifted gently until it was flush with the other side. Wally's blood clotted almost instantly, and he only bled a little when his body whirred ...

But the rib slipped away.

"Dammit," muttered Robin. Superboy pressed a little harder, but it didn't stop the vibrating. Robin shook his head. Nobody wanted more broken bones.

"M'gann," Robin called, a note of panic invading his tone, "come here! Can you calm him down? At this rate we may have to re-break his rib so it connects properly."

"I can try," she said nervously. Miss Martian flew over and gently placed her fingers over Wally's temples, projecting 'calm' into his thoughts. Wally sucked in a sharp breath at the touch.

Nightwing's eyes widened. THIS _didn't happen before. _He sunk down, leaning against the corner of a vertical support. _Crap. What did I do wrong?_

Wally gradually stilled, breathing evenly. His eyes drifted shut.

"Thank you, beautif ..." he murmured a little drunkenly as he passed out.

Robin breathed a sigh of relief as he shifted the rib a little higher. He could already feel the bone knitting with its other half. In fact, Robin's finger was in danger of getting stuck as the incision closed around it. He waited about five or six minutes, checked to make sure the joining was smooth, and yanked his finger out. Wally was already halfway healed.

Nightwing shook his head in amazement at this for the second time in his life. He ran his finger over his heart - over the scar left from the arrow's scratch earlier that day. It would never go away.

Miss Martian frowned, her fingers still on Wally's temples.

Superboy glanced over. "What is it, M'gann?"

"I didn't mean read his mind, but ... " she asked. "Robin ... you were with us the whole time before we found Wally by the tree, right?"

Robin raised an eyebrow. "Yeah. Why?"

"Wally thinks that ... he was stuck in the avalanche, and you pulled him out."

Everyone looked at her, confused.

"A dream, possibly?" Aqualad supplied. "... concussion from the explosion?"

"... possibly," echoed M'gann.

Nighwing held his breath. _That is _bad_. Should I get out of here? _His instincts told him he shouldn't. _I'll just play dead. _

_No reading the good guys' minds, ok, M'gann? Especially not this one. _He pursed his lips. _Geeze, Superboy and M'gann are a power couple. I don't even want to think about what their kids will be like. Glad they're on my side. Well, usually._

Aqualad placed a hand on her shoulder. "We can ask him about it in the morning. We should all rest now."

"Yeah," M'gann agreed.

Nightwing sighed quietly in relief and peeked out from behind his post. Everyone was gathering blankets and cushions, laying them by the crackling fire. Superman and M'gann cuddled up on the far side of the open fireplace in the middle of the room, while Aqualad and Artemis each took a side, as close to the flames as they could get.

Robin shook Wally gently, who reluctantly returned to the land of the conscious. He dragged the out-of-it boy over to the hearth, where he clumsily slipped back into his costume. Wally propped his chin on his hand and shut his eyes. That didn't mean he shut up, though.

"I get the best cushions, right? _Surgery _and all …" he complained.

Robin rolled his eyes and yanked the cushions off the biggest couch. Wally stumbled over, eyes still half-closed, and face-planted into them. Robin grabbed a blanket.

"Well? What do you say?"

He mumbled something incoherent into the cushions.

"I just fixed your rib!"

"I want a juice box and a jello."

"What?"

"What kind of hospital is this? Where's the jello?"

"Augh." He tossed the blanket on top of Wally's head.

Robin came back with an apple juice and a jello. "Here."

Wally looked up at him mirthfully. "Thank you, Dr. Bird Brain," he sang.

The corner of Robin's mouth twitched, and he tried to suppress a smile. "Fine."

He took off his cape, draped it over himself like a blanket, flopped down on the floor next to Wally, and quickly fell asleep.

Nightwing lay down on his stomach on the beam farthest from the group, legs and arms dangling lazily over either side. He dozed lightly, lulled to sleep by the soft, even breathing of his friends' slumber, but he couldn't stay asleep for long. Every time he moved the beam dug into something different and woke him up.

Several hours later, the fire died down, and most of the candles had flickered out. Nightwing opened his eyes part-way again as he heard Wally groan below him. The silver moonlight fell over the boy's face, bleaching the color of his skin and making his freckles stand out. Wally blearily sat up on the tan couch cushions he'd claimed and reached behind the decorative firewood for the little green juice box and red jello.

Sipping sleepily on the apple juice, Wally noticed that Robin had rolled a few feet away from the fire, off by himself on the edge of the group. He lay on his side, legs curled almost up to his chest. His uniform was torn open, and he clutched his cape in front of him, wrapped into a tiny ball in his skinny arms.

He was shivering.

Wally frowned as he shifted off the cushions. He quietly crawled over to his freezing-cold best friend, where he tried to pry the cape out of the boy's kung-fu grip to cover him with it properly. Unconscious Robin was having none of it. Wally hesitated.

Eventually, he lay down beside him, tucking one folded arm under Robin's head and looping the other around his waist. Wally warily watched Robin for signs of waking and/or hitting him, but Robin just relaxed in the glow of Wally's speedster heat and breathed tranquilly. Wally smiled a little, his eyes drooping as he drifted to sleep beside the black-and-red boy.

Nightwing's throat constricted. He remembered that Wally had woken up on the floor instead of the cushions in the morning, but he didn't know … he rolled over onto his back and stared at the ceiling.

His chest hurt in a way that it hadn't in a long time.

_Idiot. ...s._

_All of us._


	5. Part I: Rewind

_So, name change! I kinda wanted a name that would reflect my girlyness, I guess. :)_

_**_I made art of what I think Dick and Wally look like in the future! **http :/tinyurl . com / 429wn8c**_**_

_If you have opinions on what kind of posters Wally might have in his room, feel free to PM me with your suggestions! I guess I'm sort of picturing band posters. Of course you'll get a big thank you in the chapter I use it in!_

__Light slash warning still applies! :) _  
><em>

* * *

><p>The next morning, as the sun peeked over the mountain, Nightwing opened his eyes to the very familiar sound of Robin's early morning calisthenics. He - <em>I<em> - was the first one up; everyone else breathed softly in slumber. Robin stealthily dodged between the patches of warm yellow sunlight filtering through the lodge windows, leaping silently from table to table. Well, _almost _silently. Nightwing smirked a little.

_Wish I could join me. _Nightwing suppressed a groan as he shifted to his knees on the uneven wooden beam: his legs and torso ached in indescribable ways. No opportunity to stretch, though; morning sun was dangerous, and so he slipped further into the shadows on his numb, tingling calves. He massaged his tender muscles as quietly as he could, keeping an eye on his younger self.

Robin took a breather - and out came the birdarang that Nightwing had left behind. He tossed it across the room lightly toward a mounted deer head; it sliced the antler clean off and landed in the wall. Robin's eyes went wide, and he grimaced as the antler clattered to the ground.

"Uh.. whoops," he whispered to himself. Nightwing grinned at the memory.

The noise roused Superboy and Miss Martian; Artemis and Aqualad followed shortly thereafter. Wally still slept, snoring softly, sprawled on the floor like he'd accidentally rolled off his cushions in the night. Miss Martian floated luxuriously off the ground, adjusting her form; Artemis aligned the arrow that had twisted as she tossed and turned the night before back toward her face.

_Eyes up here, right, Arty? _Nightwing stretched himself in half gingerly, hooking his wrists past his heels. He grinned. _To bad it still couldn't properly orient our Wally, hmm?_

Robin tossed his grappling hook at the weapon and pulled the birdarang out of the wall.

"What's that?" inquired Aqualad, as he joined Robin and peered at the odd "batarang."

Robin shook his head. "I'm not totally sure. I found it in the warehouse yesterday."

Artemis peeked over his shoulder. "That's the thing that sliced the arrow in half … right before it skewered you."

Robin raised his eyebrows. "That takes some amazing precision," he murmured.

He tossed it at a tiny knot half-way up the wall; it landed exactly in the middle. The batarang fell again from the grappling hook into Robin's hands, and the acrobat held it horizontally on the tips of his fingers. His eyes narrowed as he scrutinized it closely.

"I don't know what it's made of," he frowned. "But the weight of it is _perfect_. It's …"

He threw it toward the fireplace with a slight twist of the wrist.

"Duck," he commanded.

The birdarang circled around the room like a boomerang, and everyone crouched as fast as they could. Robin smirked obnoxiously and grabbed it out of the air it came back around.

"Sorry," he said, but he totally didn't mean it. "It's _great_."

_For the best, by the best. _Nightwing matched Robin's smirk exactly.

"Hmm. Did you guys see anything strange at the warehouse?"

"Not really," Artemis said. "But something happened to Superboy's mind-control device. It shorted or … "

"Superboy?" Robin interrupted thoughtfully. "Maybe Wally saw something."

Nightwing felt light and relieved. He recognized _all_ of these events: _this _was the timeline he had lived.

This conversation was part of the report; this was how he knew to show up at that warehouse; this was how he knew the three things he had to do: pull the device off Superboy, stop the arrow, and make sure Robin - _I_ - took that birdarang home. Without the little projectile, he - _I_ - will never figure out five years later that _I_ was the one in the warehouse.

_Probably, anyway. _Nightwing frowned. _At least that's how _I_ did it._

Robin walked over to the fire and nudged Wally in his good ribs with his foot.

"Hey," said Robin. "Sleeping Beauty. Get up."

"But we can't just leave the cookies there," Wally mumbled. "They''ll be lonely."

Robin rolled his eyes while the others suppressed snickers.

"Get up," ordered Robin a little louder.

Wally sat up and rubbed his eyes.

"Ugh," he groaned, looking at Robin, annoyed. "Five more minutes, _mom_."

Robin narrowed his eyes. "Seriously, we need to get it together and get out of here."

He pulled Wally up by the hand. "Your rib ok?" he asked kindly.

Wally gently massaged the tender spot. "Yeah, basically."

Robin nodded, satisfied. "So, we were wondering if you saw anyone at the warehouse yesterday."

"You mean the guy who yanked out Superboy's mind control device? I dunno, some guy in black swung by and took it."

Wally paused. "Probably the same one who threw that batarang, huh?"

Robin stared at him blankly, mouth agape. "And you didn't share this last night with us _why?"_

He threw up his hands in frustration at the yellow speedster.

Wally sputtered and looked cross. "Sorry, dude, guess being _smothered_ in an avalanche and getting a _surgery_ on punctured lung sort of _distracted_ me," he snapped.

Nightwing knitted his brows. _Ok, this conversation does NOT align with my memory. Not good._

Had he made changes to the timeline? He had definitely done everything _he_ - as Robin - remembered from this case. _Did I do something wrong during the events that I - _Robin _- _didn't _witness back then? Er, now?_

"You were in the _avalanche_?" said Robin, surprised.

_Did Wally survive on his own last time? _Nightwing fretted. _Did someone else dig him out without Robin - _me _- knowing about it? Did he not get caught at all? Crap - if things aren't going exactly the way that they did then, what else is going to change? … we may not even make out of here alive._

_Way to kick off a paradox, Grayson._

Wally snorted. "_You_ should know, Robs, _you're_ the one who pulled me out and gave me mou - -"

Wally suttered to a stop because Robin's bewildered expression clearly showed he had no idea what Wally was talking about ... and that just went all sorts of weird places.

_Then who?_ thought Wally. _Did I _hallucinate_ it?_

… that went even _weirder_ places that weren't comfortable in the least.

"Uhm," Miss Martian interjected, sweetly raising her hand. "... is it ok if I read your mind? I might be able to pull out who it was …"

Wally flushed but acquiesced. "Fine."

He grinned at M'gann as he hopped on the table. "... only cuz it's you, beautiful."

Wally studiously avoided Superboy's patient eyeroll.

Nightwing, however, was on the verge of panic. This was _definitely_ _NOT _the timeline he had lived.

_Fantastic. At this rate, maybe I should just walk up and say hello,_ he thought dryly. _I'm in your timelines, fucking up your future!_

Instead, he held his breath, pulled down his goggles, and inched slowly along the beam at the edge of the room toward the window he'd come through.

M'gann closed her eyes and gently placed her hands on Wally's temples again. Wally squinched his nose and concentrated. As she triggered a memory of having trouble breathing and freezing, his breath became shallow and uneven; he gripped the edge of the table tightly.

"Wally was suffocating," Miss Martian reported. "... and someone - almost definitely a male - flipped him over and gave him mouth to - -"

"Er, _saved_ him," Wally interrupted and cleared his throat.

Artemis smirked, and Robin raised an eyebrow.

"It definitely wasn't Robin," the telepath continued. "He was big enough to carry Wally to the tree ... He said something about his name being ... Night ... something ... and babe?"

Wally flushed bright red down through his chest.

"He seemed to be wearing black," M'gann finished. "But it's hard to say for sure because he was in shadow, and Wally had his eyes closed most of the time."

Robin pulled up a database on his wrist computer of known villains with "Night" in their name.

"Hmm. All the villains who fit that description are either incarcerated or accounted for in other countries right now. And none of them have any known association with Killer Frost or the Mad Hatter."

"... what about heroes?" asked Wally.

Superboy raised an eyebrow. "Then why would he hide? Why would he run away?"

"I dunno, late for a hot date?" retorted Wally. "He saved my life. Not exactly Killer Frost's style."

"Already on it," Robin said patiently. "Same thing. All of them are accounted for and none wear only black right now. I'd have to get to the ship to access the most updated database, though."

Everyone waited expectantly. The fourteen-and-a-half-year-old hadn't been their leader for long, but they still looked only to him for a plan. He sighed, idly fiddling with the birdarang as he thought.

He didn't _need _this on top of the current case. A little frustrated, Robin forcefully tossed the birdarang around one more time around the room. It skewed off course …

… where it lodged itself in a crossbeam, right at Nightwing's feet.

Everyone stared in shock for a moment at the masked figure in black with blue smeared across his chest. Nightwing's eyes widened.

_... and that is absolutely my cue to go. _Nightwing sprinted the rest of the way along the wall toward the window.


	6. Part I: Batwing Part 1

_So, author name change! I kinda wanted a name that would reflect my girlyness, I guess. :)_

__I made art of what I think Dick and Wally look like in the future! http :/tinyurl . com / 429wn8c__

_If you have opinions on what kind of posters Wally might have in his room, feel free to PM me with your suggestions! I guess I'm sort of picturing band posters. Of course you'll get a big thank you in the chapter I use it in!_

__Light slash warning still applies! :) __

* * *

><p>"Miss Martian!" Robin called.<p>

M'gann flew after the boy in blue goggles as he ripped off the window, flung it at her, and squirmed through the opening. He tossed a half a dozen birdarangs behind him for good measure, expertly _just_ missing all of his friends, and took off.

Miss Martian dodged the window and the blades, but the distraction bought Nightwing just enough time to double back around under the roof instead of just beelining it straight into the snow.

As he leapt from beam to beam toward the mountain slope on the other side of the building, M'gann gently reached into his thoughts.

_Augh, sorry_. He mentally apologized for the window.

Then he blanked his mind and concentrated as hard as he could.

_… Sorry about this, too._

Nightwing briefly heard her mental feedback through the connection.

"He's ... he apologized," she reported. "And now he's singing about ... how he's glad it's Friday? ... and he can't pick a seat? … and geeze, _augh_." He got a mental picture of M'gann clutching her head. "He won't let me into his thoughts, and frankly I don't _want_ in."

Nightwing smirked.

"... No." M'gann continued her conversation, answering a question he couldn't hear. "He's very good at hiding."

Nightwing leaped directly from a beam onto an evergreen without touching the snow on the ground. The pines rustled under his weight as he grappled through them until he felt M'gann's metal pressure melt away at the edge of her telepathic range.

_Thank god for Rebecca Black_, he grinned as he slipped out of the pines and behind a nearby boulder. _Most powerful telepathic weapon ever_.

The strain of keeping M'gann out made his thinking very fuzzy, though, and he struggled to shake off the mental fog.

Nightwing peeked his head just above the rock and sighed in relief. _Hmm. They'd don't seem to be following me_. _A small gift._

_But … at this point I think … I think the timeline is completely polluted. I should be over there. I'm pretty sure there's a really important reason I should be over there. What was I supposed to do next?_

His breath came in short white clouds; he panted and cradled his head in his hands, struggling to remember.

_AND I'm going to have that damn song stuck in my head all day._

That didn't help with the thinking. When he squinted at the far side of the lodge, he thought he saw movement in the trees.

_Hmm_. Nightwing crouched back against the rock to pull up the report for more details to jog his memory - and got pistol whipped along the way.

_What the … ?_

The acrobat looked up in shock at a leering crook who'd snuck up on the distracted hero.

"Well, ain't I bagged a pretty one?" he mocked, waving his 45 around in his white mittens.

Nightwing wiped some blood away from the corner of his mouth and grinned.

It had been way to long.

Using the boulder for leverage, he rocked back on his hands and launched both feet into the goon's chin. The thug grunted as Nightwing made contact with his jaw in a sickening crack.

He flew back into the snow and passed out; Nightwing paused briefly to check his pulse. He was alive, but he would probably need his jaw wired shut.

_Hit him a little too hard. My control's not that great any more._ One corner of Nightwing's mouth twitched in disappointment.

It had been months since Nightwing had _really_ fought; he'd been preoccupied - _obsessed_ - with more pressing matters.

_Probably doing the world a favor to shut this guy up for a while, though._

As he tossed the thug's gun down the mountain, he heard two - _no, three_ - more behind him. Nightwing spun around: one Gun, two Muscle.

_Yes. Could use a little more black-and-white-save-the-world these days. _He whipped out his escrima sticks and beamed.

The Gun was trailing behind the other thugs - he's not as strong. One of the Muscles advanced, and Nightwing ran straight at him, trapping his wrist between his sticks and yanking him forward. The lithe hero slid through the bulkier man's legs, pulling him down onto his face over Nightwing's head. Nightwing kicked up as Muscle #1 face-planted, and he caught the kneecaps of the startled Gunman. The acrobat twisted agilely out of the way as the smaller crook fell over, yelling in pain.

The last minion pulled back to punch Nightwing as he got up, but he dodged the blow and brought his escrima stick down diagonally across his chest as Muscle #2 stumbled past him when his throw missed the mark. He piled on top of his other "friends."

Five more goons emerged from the trees. Nightwing paled.

_What I wouldn't give for a smoke bomb right now._

Nightwing leaped over the bodies below him and engaged the closest crook. He hit the hood's knees horizontally with his sticks, deftly dancing over and beside the other punches and kicks. The snow slowed him down, but it also slowed everyone else down - everyone but the guy with the blaster. Nightwing heard the sharp, high-pitched _whir pop_ that indicated the gun had charged, and he lunged for the ground.

But the blast fired randomly into the air, and the energy rifle flew across the field, landing inches from Nightwing's head. A yellow and red blur flitted over and snapped it in half.

Wally, goggles firmly in place, leaned over the acrobat.

"Sorry it took so long," Wally grinned sarcastically. "You're not one for footprints, are you?"

The speedster brought an elbow up behind him to catch another hoodlum in the face.

"So," he demanded coldly, "who are you?"

"Sorry, need to know basis."

"Huh. Sweet goggles," Wally commented dryly. "Speedster?"

Nightwing snorted as he propelled himself up off the snow in a half bridge. He snapped another thug in the stomach and brought his escrima stick down on his ear. Before the goon had collapsed to his knees, Nightwing spun back, nailed another crook behind him on the shoulder with a roundhouse kick, and finished a third off by sweeping his legs out from under him. The three moaned into their unintentional snow angels.

"Do I look like a speedster?" he asked.

Wally added one more hood to his own pile of unconscious bodies as he stared, eyes narrowed.

"... nice moves," he said, finally.

Nightwing couldn't help but smirk. "You have no idea," he murmured, grinning suggestively.

"I'm asking again. Who are you?"

_Crack_; another guy face down in the snow. _Hope I didn't break his leg_.

"Why aren't you fighting with the others?" deflected Nightwing. "These jerks are on the other side of the lodge as well, no?"

_Not that I don't enjoy this._

"Uh … yeah." Wally snapped the tip off a laser gun and dropped it at his feet. "But Rob - our, uh, _leader_ said to make you a priority." Wally grabbed another one and swung him fifty feet away.

Nightwing snickered. _Your illustrious "leader?" Pfft. You'd never call me that to my face._

"What are you doing here? Why did you spy …"

Nightwing dodged a kick flying in from behind him, and Wally took the creep out.

Then there was a deafening rumble, and the sounds of an energy blaster or two came from the far side of the lodge. Wally paused at the noise behind him, looking a little alarmed.

A flood of memories returned to Nightwing.

_NO._

He just barely missed a punch to the gut.

_Mysterious black-clad ME is supposed to STOP that._

An eerily familiar pattern of laser blasts and explosions erupted in the field beyond.

He was way too far away. _NO. NO._

Panicked, Nightwing spun back toward Wally.

"Kid Flash! You _HAVE_ to go back and get _everyone_ away from the lodge - out of that field!" he said desperately.

Wally looked at him, unsure. "They can handl…"

"NO. _Get back there_. RUN. THEM. AS FAR. AS YOU CAN."

Wally frowned, "I'm suppos …"

_Why are you following mini-me's orders so nicely _now? Nightwing groaned internally.

"Dammit, _GO_. They'll _DIE_."

Wally's eyes widened, and he jogged backwards for a second, staring. There was something in the other hero's tone … Wally slipped a little as he spun around and took off as fast as he could, leaving a trail of half-melted snow behind him.

Nightwing's chest constricted, and his escrima sticks fell to his sides.

_I'M supposed to be over there. This is a fuckup to the n-th degree. If only they hadn't caught me ... If only I hadn't stayed in the lodge._

Feeling sick, he stared as the yellow blur shrunk down the mountain.

A goon cracked him on the head from behind.

"Dammit!" he snapped as he spun and smashed the guy's elbow.

The thug dropped to his knees, whining and writhing, the snow around him turning pink.

Nightwing looked at him sadly.

_Sorry._

He turned back toward his friends.

_I'm sorry._

He couldn't wallow in self-pity too long, though, because he heard yet _another_ explosion, this time _behind_ him in the forest.

Nightwing paled. _The Batwing_.

Can _nothing_ go right?


	7. Part I: Batwing Part 2

_Light slash warning still applies!_

**_I can't even say how grateful I am for all the wonderful reviews and favorites and alerts! I'm gonna do my best to respond to all of you! _**

* * *

><p>Nightwing dashed into the trees as he pulled up the GPS coordinates of the borrowed plane from the old report. M'gann's bioship had been ripped up badly in the previous mission, and the turn around time on this one had been faster than the ship could heal. They'd grabbed the Batwing while the ship healed with J'onn.<p>

He grappled his way through the evergreens as quickly as he could, finally pausing in a perch above the plane. Two of Killer Frost's crew picked away at a maintenance panel just under one wing, pulling out wires.

Nightwing sucked in a breath. _How the hell did they past the shield? Did I leave the windows down with the damn keys in the ignition?_

But no, the shield began to flicker back online, and one particularly nerdy minion gleefully tapped at a podium-sized machine set up on the far side of the plane. It activated an electromagnetic pulse, and the soft light of shield stuttered away again temporarily. The other two goons pulled out wire cutters and laughed as they haphazardly damaged the delicate connections in the ship.

_Geeze, it's like they're five. _Nighwing curled his lip. _Ok. Let's get this over with._

Nightwing launched himself out of the tree onto the nearest thug, drawing his stick across his throat until he fell slack. The other, on top of the Batwing, leaped onto Nightwing's shoulders. The acrobat collapsed under his weight, rocking backwards until he could plant a foot on the thug's thigh, roll the guy over his head and slam him onto his back. The heavy man groaned and passed out, blood oozing from a shallow but nasty head wound he'd gotten from a rock along the way.

_Really have to work on that control when I get back. If I get back. If there's anything to get back to. _Nightwing sighed a little.

_Who knows how much the universe has shifted by now?_

He crept into the shadows beneath the body of the plane. As he crouched, Nightwing felt a strange, hot pain in his right side.

_Naughh,_ he groaned inwardly, cradling his abdomen and collapsing to his knees. _Did those guys hit me?_

It was a bizarre sensation; the pain almost fluttered, fading in and out. His breathing evened after a moment, and he pulled his hand away, expecting blood, but nothing came away on his hands. He frowned as the pain lessened, and eventually, he was able to focus on the skinny scientist nervously peeking out from behind the giant electromagnetic device again.

"Taylor?" the glasses-sporting man called. "Sanders?"

Nightwing snickered and tossed a rock in his direction. When the guy stood up to investigate the source, the hero leap-frogged over the sturdy device and took him out by slamming his tucked knees right into the crook's pocket protector filled with pens.

"_Oof!_" The hapless scientist crashed to the ground, cowering. "Don't hurt me!"

Nightwing rolled his eyes and was about to smash the device's controls when the Batwing's shield started to power on again.

_And here I left the keys in my other pants_.

Nightwing grabbed the quivering man by his ridiculous lab coat.

"How do use this?" he demanded.

"I'll … I'll never tell," whimpered the gray-haired man.

Nightwing pressed an escrima stick to his throat and raised an eyebrow. "I hope you're not too attached to your esophagus."

An empty threat, but it worked.

"The green and red buttons! One right after the other."

Nightwing kept him conscious until the shield flickered off again and gently knocked him out. A quick assessment of the damaged console told him he couldn't reconnect all the wires from the outside. Tapping the entrance codes into the nearest hatch, he crawled inside the ship.

_Intruder detected,_ intoned the onboard computer. _Please provide identification codes._

"Wayne-tech override RG 4," Nightwing said calmly, as he pulled away the grating protecting the shallow maintenance tunnel next to the damaged panel.

_Voice print not recognized._ _Please provide identification codes._

Nightwing's mouth fell open. _Uhm_.

"Er .. Wayne-tech override RG 4," he squeaked, almost an octave higher.

_Voice print not recognized. Please provide identification codes._

Nightwing knocked his head against the bulkhead in frustration. _What did I sound like when I was 14-and-a-half?_

"Wayne-tech override RG 4," he tried again, splitting the difference.

_Voice print recognized. Welcome, Robin._

Nightwing exhaled sharply and half-smiled. _At least I didn't sound like a castrati._

Immediately, he accessed the computer, patched security back up, and erased all evidence of his little visit. Nightwing slid down into the depths of the damaged ship underneath the floor.

_Ok. Fix this - get in, get out, go home._

He lay prone in the shallow crawlspace, about the size of an air vent, next to the broken console. He carefully patched the intact wires back into their proper places, but about half of the connections had been cut, and the wires were too short now. He began to rip off the rubber coatings and twist them back together as fast as he could; he sure as hell wished he were a speedster _now_.

The main hatch opened, and footsteps resonated up the metal ramp.

"Recognize temporary identification code SB 7," Superboy mumbled before the ship had an opportunity to ask for them.

Trying not to panic, Nightwing slid the grating above him into place peeked out as the team returned.

_So much for the "get out."_

His shirt in tatters, Superboy stumbled the rest of the way in, half-supporting a panting M'gann. She was covered in soot, and her clothes - no, her _skin_ looked burned. Nightwing's eyes widened in worry, and his chest tightened. A completely wiped Artemis followed, sans bow and arrows, and Aqualad brought up the rear, holding a large energy crystal.

_Whew_, Nightwing exhaled and shut his eyes, relieved. _At least we still recovered the crystal. This isn't a "the Light will take out the League tomorrow with their doomsday device" level disaster._

This happy event had happened before. _Could be a lot worse._

Then the hatch ramp rumbled as it closed.

_Wait _…_ Whe ... where is Wally … and where am I?_


	8. Part I: Batwing Part 3

_As always, light slash warning applies!_

_So I'm going to burn through these as fast as I can people, __**because you guys have been ****freaking amazing.**_

_I have gotten so many helpful feedback and comments that I can't even process it all. I am **floored**. __I have the roughs of all of the next major set of chapters done; with my drafts this monster is 19,000 words! I haven't even totally finished fleshing out the next act! Crazy! I really hope you continue to enjoy!_

* * *

><p>Aqualad tapped on his comm. "Kid Flash, do you read? We have returned to the ship. Do you read?"<p>

Static.

Superboy frowned from his seat on the floor; Miss Martian rested her head on his shoulder, eyes closed. "Try Robin's."

Aqualad nodded: "Robin, do you read? We have rendezvoused at the ship. Come in."

Still nothing.

Even Artemis looked panicked. "What do we do now?"

Aqualad shook his head. "I don't want to leave them behind, but that last explosion looked … ominous. We're going to have to contact the League."

Nightwing went pale and sucked in a breath. Looking at his hands and patting his chest, he didn't _seem _to be phasing out of existence ... so at least _Robin _must be fine. _Or __else __that__'__s __just __not __how __time __travel __paradox __rules __work_.

_Did__ … __did __I __send __Wally __to __his __death__? _He hyperventilated a little. _How __do __I __get __out __of __here__?_

He eyed his very powerful friends. _Ok__._ _No __time __for __introductions__ - __or to __get __captured__. _

_Four __to __one__. __At__ … __at __least __they__'__re __a __little __tired__? _he thought, trying to psych himself up. _How __do __I __get __out __of __here__?_

… _everything __I __have __for __a __smoke __bomb __right __now__. _He gulped. _This __is __futile__._

_But __it__'__s __also __Wally__._

"Superboy and I can go after them. Maybe I can …," M'gann volunteered, as she opened her eyes with great effort. "… find … we - -"

Holding his breath, Nightwing slowly, carefully slid the grate above him aside. _Escape __route__ - __which __hatch __opens __the __fastest__?_ _The __one __in __the __floor__. __Too __far__. __I__'__ll __aim __for __the __one __I __came __in__. _

His hands trembled as he prepared for the inevitable clatter he'd create when he launched himself out of this very awkward crawlspace. As he hoisted himself up partway, the grate started to slide with a rattle.

A rattle that was - _very __luckily_ - covered by a frantic, humming-bird speed pounding on the hull.

"Let us in!" Wally yelled desperately. "Our comms are fried!"

Artemis scrambled for the hatch controls, and the hatch rumbled open again.

Nightwing almost passed out with relief back into the crawlspace. Catching his breath, he used the noise as a cover to replace the grate.

Wally stumbled up the ramp, covered in soot like Artemis, one leg of his uniform half-singed off, and cradling a badly burned Robin in his arms. The explosion had seared the boy's right side, destroying his cape and half his costume. His utility belt was black and several of the pouches melted.

"Where's the first aid kit!" Wally called. Everyone quickly split up to look for it, and Wally vibrated unevenly as he set Robin down on the console.

"I outran them, but they're coming," he said, wiping sweat from his brow. His hands and uncovered leg were raw with burns, the skin peeling and black around the edges in some spots. "I'm afraid the run was a little rough on …"

Robin coughed and squirmed.

"Where's that first aid kit!" he demanded, zipping randomly around the room, looking in cabinets and overhead compartments.

"NavCon …" wheezed Robin weakly, lifting an arm toward the front of the ship. "Above the navigation console."

"Got it," Artemis said as she fished it out of the small black compartment. Wally immediately snatched it from her hands, pawing through it.

"No more _painkillers__?_" he cried, the contents of the kit littering the floor.

Robin, eyes closed, confirmed with a small shake of his head. Wally knitted his brow in frustration and guilt. Artemis shot him a look and grabbed the kit back, pulling out supplies for a poultice and some bandages. Wally stood by helplessly.

Nightwing stared from the opening of the maintenance tunnel as he wiggled back into place. It was a surreal feeling, watching himself squirm as Artemis treated Robin's nasty wounds. These were new; this was something that hadn't happened to _him_.

_I __was __supposed __to __stop __the __explosion__. __I__ - __the _previous _"__I__" - _did _stop __the __explosion__, _he berated himself.

"They're coming!" Superboy interrupted Nightwing's ruminations. He pointed out the windshield toward a wave of twenty or so of Killer Frost's crew swarmed over the edge of the field.

Aqualad stepped hurriedly over to the groaning acrobat in red and black. "I am afraid you're going to have to tell me how to fly the plane, Robin."

"Sure. It's .. not that … ha …" Robin painfully sucked in a breath and groaned.

"Computer," Robin commanded a little more steadily. "Recognize personal id...identification RG 4. Initiate. engines and bring. nav-navigation systems online."

_Voice __print __recognized__. __Welcome__, __Robin__. __Engines __initialized__._

The ship jostled Nightwing as the engines started up below him. The deep sound reverberated through the tiny tunnel.

_Navigation __system __activation __error__. __Activation __error__._

Robin paled. "Bring navigation systems online!" he yelled.

_That __would __be __this_. Nightwing had just finished quietly sliding back into position and immediately snapped back to his job, patching the rest of the wires as fast as he could.

"They're almost here!" reported Superboy; he could heard the buzz of charging energy guns several yards away.

"What should I do, Robin?" asked Aqualad. "Can I navigate manually?"

"Probably not," moaned Robin.

_Error__. __Error__._

_Crap __crap __crap__._ Nightwing's hands shook as he stripped another pair of wires.

"What do we do, Robs?" Wally panicked.

"Shut up! I'll think of something, idiot!" snapped Robin, and he got up to steer the ship himself. He batted Wally's helping hand away. Wally swallowed.

At that moment, Nightwing slipped the last connection in to place.

_Navigation __systems __online__._

Robin collapsed into the captain's seat, and everyone sighed in relief. Wally sat as far from the wounded and irritated Robin as possible near the grate. Nightwing slunk down farther into the shadows. The floor above Nightwing vibrated as Wally slid down the bulkhead to the floor, cradling his head in his fried hands. The speedster's erratic whirring sounded truly unnatural now.

Nightwing grimaced. He _knew _it was painful, and he _knew _how to stop it, at least temporarily. He wanted to help Wally so badly.

_Maybe __I __can __show __him __somehow __on __the __way __home __without __revealing __who __I __am__ … __even __a __mysterious __note__? __Is __that __just __playing __with __fire__?_

_Is __it __worth __getting __burned__?_

Robin panted as he punched in the keystrokes required to start the launch process himself. "Should be smooth sailing, now that the navigation system can take us the rest of the way home."

Aqualad gently helped Robin back to the flat part of the console and replaced him in the captain's chair. The goons below were blown to the ground by the ship's exhaust as the ship propelled itself into the air.

Everyone was quiet for the five hour flight home from Newfoundland to Gotham in Connecticut. Wally winced every time Robin groaned as the ship hit turbulence.

Wally cringed at his friend's suffering. "... painkillers wasted on me," he muttered under his breath above Nightwing's head.

His burns already looked fine.

Nightwing frowned at his smaller self, who had snapped cruelly at the speedster a moment ago. _God__, __I __hope __I __don__'__t _blame _him__. _He grimaced in annoyance. _I __really__, __really__, __really _better _not__._

Nightwing's side ached as well, where the goons had gotten him. It didn't really feel like a _blow__, _exactly_, _more like a rawness - like he'd been shot with a blaster or badly scraped.

_Guess __I __should __take __a __look __at __it__._

The engines masked the rustling sounds he made as he wiggled up the top half of his uniform. He ran his hand over the area; there was no visible bruising or fresh wounds … but …

Nightwing struggled to get a good look at his side from his awkward, prone angle. Were those … new scars?

He blinked, and they were gone. His head flopped back on the floor, and again - out of the corner of his eye - he thought he saw the topography of his skin shift … and scar … in the same spot that Robin was clutching right now. But when he looked directly at it, his side hadn't changed at all - still littered with tiny, poorly healed wounds - nothing he hadn't seen the day before. And the day before that. Or before that.

Nightwing reran the events of today when he'd first experienced it, but he heard the echoes of unfamiliar sounds…_a __blinding __flash __of __light__ ..._ _Wally __grabbing __me __from __a __fire_ … _my __belt __burning __into __my __side__ … _ The images and sensations were like a very poor recording, almost a dream … like one video interlaced with another, every other line.

_Or __like __feedback__?_

He shook his head and pulled his top back into place. _I __must __be __making __this __up__. __We __make __up __memories __all __the __time__. I just _want_ this to be what happened to me, too. That__'__s __not __what __happened__. __What __happened __is __that __I __saw "__me" __defuse __the __bomb__._

Once they were over American airspace, Aqualad radioed Batman on the secure line.

"Sit-rep," Batman replied.

"Primary mission objective successful," Aqualad reported. "We obtained the crystal and can turn it over to the League. However, Robin has sustained some serious injuries and needs immediate medical attention."

"Fine," Batman said, after a pause. He almost seemed worried. "Alter course to intercept me at these coordinates in Gotham. I trust all of you can get home from there?"

"Not a problem, sir," replied Aqualad.

"I'll meet you there in an hour," he said as he up loaded the rendezvous point.

"Very good. Aqualad out."

In Gotham, Batman strode determinedly onto the plane, giving the team only a cursory nod as he gently picked up the boy in his massive Kevlar covered arms.

_I __still __looked __so __small__, _sighed Nightwing.

Everyone got off the ship and waved their goodbyes as they headed in their own directions, but Wally trailed behind Batman toward the emergency helicopter like a lost puppy.

As he loaded the now unconscious Robin onto a stretcher, Batman turned to the worried boy.

"Go home, Wally," he said patiently. "Get some rest."

Wally frowned and nodded silently.

Meanwhile, Nightwing slid out of the Batwing stealthily and grappled down the building fire escape as the helicopter took off. He pulled up his console watch and punched new coordinates in Gotham for the temporal portal so that he could return home.

Wally watched until the helicopter was a dot in the sky, lips pursed and arms crossed. Nightwing regarded his friend sadly.

Nightwing's finger hovered over the _reset _button for the time portal on his holo-watch, as Wally slowly hopped down the stairs on the fire escape.

… _would __yet __another __complete __rewrite __of __history __be __worth__ … ?_

Wally hit the ground and wandered to the edge of the alley where Nightwing was hiding.

_... __yes__. __Yes __it __would__._

He hit _reset _on alternate coordinates in Central City.


	9. Part I: Hitchhiking West

_Onward and, well, westward! I'm having a trouble naming the next few chapters, so things might be renamed for a while. _

_For instance, I went back and renamed the first "Batwing" chapter - the one where Nightwing was discovered - _to "Rewind" _because it didn't mention the Batwing, and I realized it was just a kind of recap or an intro to what-should-have-been versus what was from Nightwing's POV. Also, I'm not fond of the number 4 (not-Asian-but-dated-a-Chinese-boy-superstition). This meant that I had two "Batwing Part 3" chapters for a day._

**_So if you haven't seen the Batwing situation ended, please back up one chapter!_**

_I would like to give a **huge **thank you to **lyricalentropy** (lyricalentropy. tumblr. - just add com) who runs **fyeahwally** (fyeahwally. tumblr. - just add com) and who is a goddamn DC BAMF (bad ass mother fan) and walking Wally encyclopedia. This girl's brain is worth its weight in gold, and her beta-ing is awesome. I'd also like to **really** thank **realizations** for helping me iron out some of the time travel details!_

_**And THANK YOU to everyone who leaves reviews** - I'm always so **happy, happy, happy** to get them and especially to see people come back. They are definitely encouraging, and it sure does motivate me to get this done as fast as I can! **I'm sorry that I haven't had time to give out previews** - I hope that an essentially three-day-in-a-row update schedule makes up for it! When I have to slow down, I'll try to do it again. _

_Light slash warnings apply!_

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><p>"Howdy, stranger."<p>

Wally slowed to a stop as the masked hero in black sauntered out of the shadows. One hand sat on his cocked hip, and he held the other out with his thumb up, like he was hitchiking.

Wally glanced over his shoulder; everyone else had evaporated. He instinctively reached for his comm, but …

… _right_, he groaned. _It was destroyed in the explosion._

"... you."

"Me." The raven-haired boy grinned: the small twist to the corners of his mouth was equal parts gleeful and … mischievous. It was disturbingly familiar.

The rest of him, however, wasn't. Not really. He stood about Wally's height and had his build; blue stripes zig-zagged across his chest, and then extended down the hero's arms and over his middle and ring fingers. The blue goggles that had covered his eyes when Wally had met him on the field were back over his forehead; a large black mask hid most of his face. The guy's longish black hair curled over his collar just at the nape of his neck. He had one side of his floppy bangs tucked behind one ear; the goggles kept the rest at bay.

Wally jogged in place anxiously. "Uhm, thanks for the help today. And er … yesterday." _This is really weird. How do you thank some dude for probably giving you mouth to mouth?_

Nightwing considered his squirming younger self, saved from the explosion. "Right back at you," he said.

"Who _are_ you?"

"Nightwing." He finally let his hitchhiking hand hand drop, and he was still grinning but it softened a little. Less mischief.

Wally tilted his head, trying to remember the names of all the heroes he knew - and the ones Robin had dug up. "Never heard of you. Are you a new sidek - partner or something?"

Nightwing laughed so hard his head fell back. He covered his mouth with with his hands though, trying to muffle it. "No. Not anyone's sidekick."

_Hmmm. _Wally decided to get to the point. "... is there, like, something I can help you with?"

Nightwing rubbed the tips of his middle two fingers - the ones with the stripes - over his thumb. It was a new nervous tic Nightwing had picked up recently. He cleared his throat.

"Actually, yeah. I was hoping for a ride, speedster."

"... a ride?" repeated Wally, dumbfounded.

"To Central City. Heard of it?"

Wally narrowed his eyes. _Is he _making fun_ of me?_

"What do _you _need there?" he said abruptly, feeling possessive of his hometown.

"My train leaves from that station," Nightwing replied cryptically. "I need to go home. After I run one more errand."

His smile was very soft now, hopeful - maybe even a little sad. "Are you headed that way?"

Wally seriously considers lying: _Who the hell _is _this guy?_

But he doesn't.

"Yeah. I live there."

"Well, that's convenient."

Wally _did_ owe him his life. At least twice over. Maybe more. Also, Wally couldn't ignore it; Mr. Mysterious made him feel _safe._

He didn't like it. At all.

But.

"... sure. Ok." Wally turned his back to the older boy. "Just put your legs- "

Nightwing was already there, knees tucked next to Wally's elbows, legs folded at his hips, like he was kneeling. This placed Nightwing's shins in Wally's hands; usually people sat with legs dangling in front. _Weird. _But it would do. He shifted under the odd weight of the boy; Wally rarely carried someone his own size.

The texture of his suit was a little heavier and rougher than Wally expected; it was a Kevlar weave instead of lycra or spandex. An incredibly thin weave for Kevlar - Wally'd never felt anything like it.

Nightwing snapped his blue goggles down over his mask; his black and blue-striped arms slipped around Wally's shoulders.

"All aboard the Kid Flash Express!" Wally could _hear _the grin in his voice.

"It'll be about an hour and a half - maybe two. That ok?"

Again with the grin. "Take your time."

"... Sure."

Wally set off toward New York, and Nightwing clung to his shoulders. _Again _with the _familiar_. He felt like Nightwing was a puzzle piece that _just barely _didn't fit with the others - the size and the shape and the _weight_ was _just _off. He didn't have a lot of time to dwell on it, though, as he dodged trees in the lush Pennsylvania hills and navigated by cars on the highway in Columbus too fast for the drivers to see.

At some point during the trip Nightwing slipped one hand under Wally's arm and, leaving the other arm over his shoulder, entwined his fingers diagonally across Wally's insignia. It took some of the pressure off his shoulders and distributed it to his torso, so it was actually really comfortable - if it didn't feel so _personal._ Wally's face flushed.

When Wally finally pulled into downtown Central City, Nightwing had his head tucked into the crook of his neck and was breathing evenly.

"Are you _asleep_?" Wally panted.

No one could sleep through that. Most people couldn't even relax. Even _Robin _didn't relax.

"No, not really." Nightwing hopped down to the pavement and yawned. He pushed his goggles jauntily back up into his ruffled hair and stretched flexibly from side to side. _It looked_ _really _-

Wally shook his head. Still breathing heavily from the trip, he bent over and propped his hands on his knees.

"Dude, you're fat," he laughed, unthinkingly.

_Ack, rude._ His head popped up, and he looked Nightwing in the eyes. "Oh, man, sorry … I …"

But there was nothing in them but mirth. "Speak for _yourself_, Kid Fat."

"Ah heh," he laughed sheepishly. _I guess my reputation precedes me?_

Wally stood up and grabbed an ankle to stretch his aching quads and then leaned over and grabbed his toes to relax his Achilles. Nightwing looked at him quietly, not staring, exactly, but observing, like he was taking notes on an exotic animal.

Wally did his best to ignore the attention. _Be polite._

Nightwing glanced at his watch. "That was almost two and a half hours. You could have broken the sound barrier, you know. Slow poke."

"_What_?"

"I brought earplugs. I guess I should have mentioned that." Nightwing reached up and pulled two small, strange looking devices out of his ears.

"Do I _know_ you?" Wally spat out. He wasn't that great at being polite.

Nightwing seemed to mull this over. "You do now."

True in every sense of the word.

Wally cocked his head and narrowed his eyes. _This dude. If I didn't know better …_

"Well … so the train station's about a block over," he said, still panting a little and pointing just past the center of the quaint cobblestone downtown. "But … what time's it leave?"

Nightwing shrugged. "I have a while. You're faster than public transportation."

"So ... what are you going to do?"

Nightwing gestured southwest. "Isn't there an all-night diner in that direction? Smitty's? I can grab a bite and ..."

Wally wrinkled his brow. "That's not open for another month."

"... Oh."

"You were going to hang out there in your _uniform_?" It was a cool uniform, mostly, but hanging out in public like that wasn't exactly standard procedure.

Nightwing glanced down and patted his chest. "Oh. Right. So what are _you _doing?"

"I have to go … house sit at a friend's place. Otherwise, I'd have stayed ... back east." _No need to tell him where I freaking _live_._

"Oh." Nightwing swallowed a little. "I guess … I chose a good weekend to get a ride, then." He rocked back on his heels and then forward his toes. "I dunno, aren't you hungry? I am."

Kid Flash frowned, but his stomach rumbled. Nightwing cocked an eyebrow.

"Maybe we could run to somewhere that has an open restaurant. I could get you something to eat as thanks."

_Great, just take him on a date. _Nightwing winced internally. _Nothing weird about that._

"... house sitting, remember?"

"Well ... I guess I'll patrol," Nightwing sighed, resigned.

Wally felt bad, somehow, leaving him alone. He knitted his brows. _I mean, if he doesn't think the house is _mine_, wouldn't it be safe? _he rationalized, in a totally irrational way. _I mean, I'd totally be _dead_ right now if it weren't for him. Least I could do is give him a hamburger or something. Or lettuce. Maybe he's vegetarian. Plus, I can keep an eye on him, right?_

"Uh …" Wally paused. _How is this a good idea?_

"You can come to m - the house I'm sitting. It's a friend's," he added quickly. "So, not mine."

_HOW IS THIS A GOOD IDEA? _But it totally felt like one.

Nightwing smiled broadly. "Asterous."

"What did you say?"

"The stars are nice tonight, don't you think?" Nightwing paused and looked skyward as he clasped his wrists behind his back.

Ok. Final straw. "... Are you, like, related to Robin?" Wally asked bluntly.

_Robin's relatives are _dead_. Maybe a cousin? Some freaky clone? A long-lost member of the Bat-Fam? There's no way. Twin: category evil? _Wally cocked an eyebrow._ He's lacking the evil goatee, anyway._

Wally carefully avoided Robin's family name. He could use that to confirm or deny if the he said yes.

Nightwing played dumb. "Uh … you mean Batman's pa … sidekick? _Related _to_?_" Nightwing said with a strange emphasis on the 'related.' "No."

It rolled off his tongue like it was true. Wally weighed the odds that this guy would know "asterous" but not Robin, and they were pretty small. Still. So was the superhero community. He could have picked it up.

_Regardless, he's got a lot in common with Robs. _Wally frowned again. He still wasn't sure what to make of it.

"... well, hop on."

Nightwing vaulted lightly onto Wally's back, warm and comfortable, like he _fit._

"All aboard," he said. Wally flashed to his house a few miles away.

As Wally pulled to a stop in front of what was actually his house, Nightwing raised an eyebrow. _"House sitting," indeed._

The path to the modest brick home was lined with immaculately curated poppies and daises. The green shutters sported a fresh coat of paint, and the automatic porch sconces bathed the entrance in soft yellow light.

Nightwing narrowed his eyes as Wally flipped aside the sign "West" by the doorbell to dig out a spare key. Not that Central City wasn't one of the most down-homey, safe metropolitan areas in the country, but geeze. This must be before Wally had received the lecture on security when I - er, _Robin_ - had visited.

_Have I even been in his house, yet?_ Nightwing wondered. _Lesse ... I'm fourteen or so, Wally's sixteen ... probably? Maybe he ignored me at first._

Wally opened the green door and paused. Pictures of him littered side tables and walls. He turned to the black-haired hero, who kept as neutral an expression as possible as he tried not to laugh.

_You lovable idiot._

"Uh …" Wally stalled. "I uh … wait just a second."

And, in fact, literally a second later, Wally was back at the doorway, all damning evidence of his lie conspicuously absent. Photos were even rearranged to sort of disguise the darker, un-faded spots protected by the frames with pictures of him in it. Nightwing nodded subtly in approval. _Not too bad a cover-up, _he thought as Wally stepped aside to let him in.


	10. Part I: Feeding Friends

_Two updates in one day? Wacky! Light slash and all that! I forgot how short this was, so I thought it only fair. :)_

_EDIT: Augh, mistakes, mistakes. FIXED._

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><p>In the dining room, Nightwing lounged comfortably at the kitchen table, one arm dangling loosely over the back of his chair and a foot propped up on the rungs of one next to him.<p>

Wally gave him a funny look over the divider as he rooted through the cabinets for plates. _Sure knows how to feel at home ..._

Nightwing's eyes widened behind his mask as he noticed the boy's stare; he sat up, taking his foot off the chair and politely folding his hands on the oak table.

"Soooo … this is your ... friend's place," he said. "It's nice."

"Thanks. You want something to drink?" Wally leaned into the white fridge. "There's also ice cream."

"Soda's fine. Strawberry Zestia. You can keep all your ice cream to yourself, fatty."

"They don't make Strawberry Zestia."

Nightwing pouted. "They don't?" he sighed.

He fiddled with the fake chrysanthemums sitting on the white doily on the center of the table.

"Pretty sure I'd know."

"Hmm. I'll just have water, then."

Wally snorted and tossed a bottle over the counter peninsula that divided the kitchen from the boy at the table. Nightwing unscrewed the top.

"Sure is nice of your friends to let you use all their food on strangers," Nightwing baited.

Wally pulled fresh hamburger, lettuce, and tomatoes out of the fridge and didn't make eye contact as he put them down on the counter. "Uh, yeah."

"So, 'Nightwiiiing'," Wally began as he fired up the burners.

"You want a burger? Where are you from? What the hell is your deal?" He spun around, crossed his arms over his chest, and regarded the stranger carefully as he strung the questions one after another.

Nightwing's lips twitched. "Sure, medium. Lettuce, ketchup, mustard, no tomato. Can't tell you, and, frankly, I don't really know anymore."

"Hmm." Wally frowned and sprayed a little canola oil on the griddle. "Huh. Kinda overly secretive, aren't you? You know, if you hadn't saved our lives today -

"- and yesterday - " amended Nightwing.

"- I wouldn't be sure whose side you're on." He threw the burgers down on the grill, pressing lightly with the spatula.

Nightwing sat silently for a moment, looking at the table.

"I'm on yours. I'm always on yours," he said quietly.

"Hmm." The patties sizzled on the hot grill and filled the kitchen with a savoury aroma. "One or two? Or three?"

"One's fine." Nightwing smiled. He sat in comfortable silence as the speedster sliced the vegetables with deadly efficiency and toasted the buns.

Wally, on the other hand, knitted his brows for the umpteenth time that night as he put the burgers together. _One for Mr. Mystery, four for me ... he takes his burgers the same way Robin does. But how could...? Is he trying to impersonate Robin? If so, he's pretty damn bad at it because he needs to actually, you know, _claim to be Robin_. Or something._

As Wally put the burgers on the plates, Nightwing sighed and stretched. Wally heard him adjust himself back into the more comfortable position in the chair.

Wally spun around, plates in hand. "Saddle up, du-"

He froze at the entrance to the kitchen. Nightwing's mask was casually discarded on the table, and he was rubbing his eyes absentmindedly.

"Huh?" the hero said, looking up. His crystal blue eyes sparkled in the kitchen light.

Wally's mouth dropped open.

"I don't think you're supposed to do that, Robin," he whispered.


	11. Part I: Getting to Know You

**Lots of blathering ~! **

_I'm back from out of town! I'm sorry the this update has taken so long. Because everything in this story really needs to hang together, I have to write in huge chunks to keep from contradicting myself. Also, I have to keep my damn spreadsheet of what happens in each timeline updated. This is the wackiest ever. Anyway, thank you for your patience. Since I have the next couple of chapters almost done (just editing), other updates should come much faster. :D_

_I also need to give a HUGE THANKS for my beta-ers for the next three or four chapters: Lyricalentropy and Val-Creative. _

_Lyricalentropy (lyricalentropy. tumblr. com & fyeahwally. tumblr. com) is not only a fabulous writer, but she is also a walking DC encyclopedia. Anything that I do here that actually fits into canon is entirely thanks to her. Anything that I mercilessly violate is my fault - but at least I know what I'm violating, haha. __Val-Creative is one of my absolute favorite authors and please go read all of her fantastic stuff (www . fanfiction. net/u/446406/Val_Creative ) She's also at nooowestayandgetcaught .tumblr. com._

_Finally, I HAVE GOTTEN FANART. My brain is BROKEN. I can't even ... _

_The first piece I got was from _Mr. Sketchy (dA account: htt p:/ bit. ly /mtn6KP) did THIS awesome piece here of Nightwing and KF:** htt p: /bit. ly/ iMKI3q**_ _

__And then _Kingburu _did this: **htt p: /i55. tinypic. com/2lm3od4. png **___(You may know her as Zeraphie - there's a chance you've heard of her obscure _*coughcough* _little fic "The Art of Warm Fuzzies" oh ho. If you're one of the two people who hasn't read it, DO IT NOW: htt p:/ /bit. ly/iAkbGd. She also has a comic here: htt p: / /heart-strings. smackjeeves. com!)_

**I CAN'T BE MORE EXCITED ABOUT THIS.**

_To Loony: In my oneshot "Burn," he doesn't stay mad! :)_

_EDIT: THANK YOU to Feiring for catching a continuity error. It's ... well, it's handwaved for now! *handwave* I'll figure it out._

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><p>"What?" Nightwing said, looking alarmed, hands still by his temples. He noticed his mask on the place-mat.<p>

"Crap!" he squeaked and slammed it back on his face. It wasn't really sticking. One pointer finger held the satin black in place, and Nightwing waved his other hand in apology. "Sorry, sorry, habit."

"_Habit_?" exclaimed Wally, almost dropping the plates. He continued to stare from the kitchen threshold as he awkwardly juggled them back onto his forearms.

Nightwing sighed and plopped back down into the chair. He tossed the mask on the table; it spun until it hit the chrysanthemums. "Screw it. I don't take orders from Batman anymore, anyway."

"... you left Batman?"

"Augh," Nightwing said, in a sort of generalized "augh" at the world. Nightwing leaned back and put his hands over his face again for a minute and slid them down, dropping them loosely into his lap.

"I'm from the future," he said flatly.

"... that was my latest working hypothesis."

Never once taking his eyes off his best friend, Wally walked robotically over to the table and set down the plates. The corner of Nightwing's mouth twisted in an amused smirk.

"Oh my God, Robs."

"It's Nightwing, now," the unmasked hero said as he grabbed for his hamburger.

"Oh my _God__._"

"I think we covered that." He took a bite of the burger and hummed appreciatively. "Needs a little ketchup, though."

Wally flashed back to the kitchen, eyes still wide, and returned in a breath with the ketchup.

"You're from the _future_." Wally's face was pale and his freckles stood out.

Bemused, Nightwing glanced up at his flustered friend through his dark lashes. He loved it when he could count every single dot across Wally's cheeks and nose. "Yeah, I think I mentioned that."

"That's so _awesome__._" Wally plopped awkwardly into his seat, pouring ketchup on his burger without really looking at it. Some of the ketchup slipped off the burger and the plate.

Nightwing raised an eyebrow. "Don't hurt yourself, babe. I think we're in trouble if you have an aneurysm today."

Wally wasn't even listening; he missed both the 'babe' and the comment. "How … just how old _are_ you?"

Nightwing laughed. "You say that like I'm eighty. I turned 19 last month. My time."

"Five years ..."

"Yeah."

"Why … how… why'd you come back?"

"To save your sorry asses, of course." Nightwing coolly sipped his bottled water.

"You mean at the ski resort?" pressed Wally.

Nightwing stalled for time, trying to decide whether or not to answer. "Do you have any pickles?"

"... Yeah. At the resort," he finally finished.

Wally was suddenly holding pickles. "Uh, how did you know? How did you know we would be in trouble?"

"I remembered." Nightwing frowned and made a face. "Only sweet ones?"

"Right. Sorry. I knew that." The jar of sweet pickles magically morphed into dill pickle slices. "Remembered what?" Wally continued.

"Well, five years ago - now, I guess – all we knew was that somebody showed up and, you know, sliced the arrow, grabbed Supey's device, and uh … stuff like that. Somebody in black. So, I guess you could say he was Nightwing #1. Robin #1, too."

Nightwing tossed a couple of pickle slices on his burger. "I mean, none of us knew for sure who it was. But I found a wingding …"

"- a what?"

"... never mind. Nightwing #1 left a weird batarang behind. As Robin … er, I'm Nightwing #2, so I was Robin #2 before that. I picked it up as evidence of Nightwing #1 and handed it over to Batman."

Nightwing gestured toward Wally's burger, which was rapidly getting cold. "You gonna eat that?"

Wally looked at his plate. "Oh. Right."

"Pfft," laughed the brunette. "Now I _know_ you're in shock. So, I gave the weird batarang to Batman, and I eventually forgot about it. When I left Batman, though –"

"Is that what all this 'Nightwing' stuff is about? Leaving Batman? Is everything ok?"

Nightwing pursed his lips. "Short story, yes. I was about 18; I didn't really want to be Robin anymore. So when I left …" Nighwing smiled softly. "... you were getting a degree in mechanical engineering, and you offered to design new batarangs for me. _But_ they looked _exactly_ like the one I picked up from the 'mysterious stranger' four years before - even though _I __never __showed __it __to __you_."

Wally raised his eyebrows and paused, mid-bite on his burger.

"The hero hadn't been in any database; Batman looked for him for months. The only lead was a minor time distortion before and after the Killer Frost case in Newfoundland. Five years later, I was the right height and build, planned on wearing the same color costume, and coincidentally you designed the same weapons. … and well, not a _lot_ to go on, but we talked about it and figured that I must that time travelled. We both had a hunch."

Nightwing put down his burger. "So I went back. I sliced the arrow the same way Nightwing #1 sliced it for me and saved my life; I grabbed the device … I … "

"You saved me from the avalanche …"

"Yeah." Nightwing ran his finger thoughtfully over the condensation on the glass and frowned. "Wally … Nightwing #1 didn't do that the last time."

Wally raised his eyebrows and swallowed the last bite of his burger thickly. "Er … then how did I survive it when Nightwing #1 was there?"

"Uh … I don't know." Nightwing paused. "This is sort of a ridiculous sentence, but ... I only saw what I was there to see. Or heard about."

He snorted softly and continued. "I was just Robin #2, then. I was in the mine shaft still, and no around to see how you got out of that. But you never said anything about a stranger saving you. You did tell me about some weird guy dressed in black who sliced the arrow while I was mind-controlled; you told me how he destroyed Supey's device. I saw him, myself, briefly, on the rooftop at the lodge; then I saw him … well, I saw Nightwing #1 sabotage the energy gun across the field."

Nightwing bit his lip and looked at his hands. "Nightwing #1 one stopped all of the explosions completely when he did that, I think. There weren't any last time."

" …" Wally put down his burger, remembering _his_ Robin, the one lying in the burn treatment center Gotham hospital right now. "… but you didn't."

"No."

"So … Robs never got burned?" Wally frowned, not sure if he should be upset at this Nightwing or not.

"No, _I_ - " Nightwing put a special emphasis on the "I", "- _I_ didn't last time. I don't have any burn scars; just the arrow scratch scar."

Nightwing wouldn't look him in the eye. "... I screwed up. Nightwing #1 wasn't caught by you guys in the lodge; Nightwing #1 didn't have to mentally fight of M'gann; Nightwing #1 probably didn't save you in the avalanche – geeze, maybe you would have been ok on your own, I don't know. The only reason the teams isn't dead, probably, is because _you_ saved us this time, Wally West."

Wally shivered a little at the way Nightwing said his name. "… you told me to."

"You always were good at following orders." Nightwing grinned.

Wally narrowed his eyes.

The brunette continued. "Anyway, Nightwing #1 also apparently didn't have to stow away in the Batplane and repair the damage some of Killer Frost's goons did to the navigation system. Me – Robin #2 – we all had no trouble flying out of there, last time. The navigation systems never failed."

"Wait, _you_ fixed the navigation system? On the plane?"

"Yeah, I was down in the floorboards. See?" Nightwing grinned smugly. "I told you I'd think of something to get us out of there. It just took me five years."

"How did you even get in the Batplane? Didn't it, like, detect you?"

Nightwing cleared his throat.

"Computer, recognize emergency override RG-4," he said, raising his voice half an octave.

Wally choked on his burger.

"Don't do that again, dude," he said, laughing and coughing at his younger friend's voice coming out of the older boy's mouth. Wally was finally able to swallow, and he wiped his mouth with a brown napkin. "So, everyone in your timeline was safe after that? Even you weren't hurt?"

"… No. We were all … ok."

"Why do think Nightwing #1 went back in time the first time?"

"I dunno. I assume he came back to change something bad that happened in that timeline. Timeline #1. Maybe everyone but me died, I don't know. But things were ok in _my_ timeline - uh, let's call it timeline #2."

"Right," Wally said.

"HOWEVER, you and I figured that to _keep_ things the _same, _to make sure the future that I lived happened,_ I_ had to repeat everything we saw Nightwing do." Nightwing smirked. "Amazingly enough, _you_ were better at figuring all that out than _I_ was. Who'd have thunk it."

Wally narrowed his eyes _again_. "_Haha_. … but things aren't the same now as they were in your timeline. Because you did things differently."

"... yeah."

"Hmm," Wally chewed on his lower lip thoughtfully. "If you go back in time and kill your grandfather, then you're never born. But if you're never born, who goes back in time to kill your grandfather?"

Nightwing nodded.

"_But_… if each time travel event just … creates a new timeline, then anything can happen in that timeline, and any paradoxes created could just alternate back and forth between new timelines. Like, you kill your granddad, and then in the next timeline, you're not born so you can't travel back in time. But since you didn't travel back in time, a new timeline is created where you _are_ born again, and you can travel back in time and kill your granddad. So the two events … the two timelines … kind of oscillate back and forth."

"... And that's just _one_ event," Wally finished.

Nightwing grinned. "Yes, sounds very familiar."

Wally raised an eyebrow.

"You say that when you're 19."

Wally smirked into his burger. "So the only way to make them stable is to make the time travel exactly the same every time."

"… that was our theory. But I didn't do that." Nightwing said, sadly. "I hope I didn't make things worse… really didn't count on you being caught in the avalanche … I …" he trailed off.

"Isn't this bad? That things are different?"

"... maybe, yeah. I mean … everyone lived. And we got the crystal. That happened before. The major pieces are there."

"... but the next five years may not be the same ones you had."

"Right."

Nightwing polished off his burger, pushed away his plate, and fell back into the overly-comfortable pose in the chair. Wally shifted awkwardly, staring at Nightwing over the top of his meal. Nightwing raised an eyebrow and looked down at himself. He sat up straight again.

"... sorry. I'm just … used to these chairs."

"You've been here, like, once. I mean, it's not a _problem_- it's just … weird."

There was something in the idea that Robin would ever be just _comfortable_ in his house that made Wally's chest tighten, equal parts happy - and sad that it wasn't that way right now.

_Though __I __guess__, __technically__, __it _is _that __way __right __now__._ Wally mused, grinning.

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><p>Kind of an abrupt chapter break, but this would have been 3 times longer if I posted the other with it. I also wanted to get something up since it has been so long! :D<p> 


	12. Part I: Getting to Know All About You

_Onward and upward! Light slash warning applies as always, and of course I have to thank my betas Lyricalentropy and Val-Creative._

_I er, want to take a second to plug my Kid Flash x Robin slash tumblr, as well, if you're into that sort of thing! (And I'm guessing you kind of are?) So it's at _kidflashxrobinslash. tumblr. com_. I'd love to see you there. (*o_o*) Lots and lots of Birdflash! Ahem. _

_Also! For those of you who read my other fic 'High On You', I just posted a sort of sequel piece of art there! It's called 'Sweet Sixteen', since uh, Robin's almost sixteen at the end. It's maybe a little spoilery if you haven't read it. _htt p :/ /bit .ly/ jGOlyW

**_THANK YOU EVERYONE WHO HAS REVIEWED AND FAVORITED AND ALERTED. It is totally overwhelming, and I am unspeakably grateful. _**

_I also have two really important author notes (look for - slightly altered - shout outs, can't take credit for genius!) at the end. :)_

_Also, thanks to Feiring for catching a continuity error for me! I've worked really hard to keep them all covered (yay Excel!), but if you spot something let me know. This was an easy fix, it turns out, and some of them may be addressed later, but I appreciate it. :)_

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><p>Wally stared into his meal as he tried to process the awkward but happy feeling of having Robin just comfortably hanging out in his house. <em>So many questions<em>.

"So, uh …" Wally said. "Do they not have scissors in the future?"

"Er, what?"

Wally grinned. "I'm asking why you haven't cut your hair in five years, Robin."

Nightwing pursed his lips and narrowed his eyes. "It's _Nightwing _now, Wally. Or Dick."

Wally snickered. "_Dick_."

"... shut up. You don't care later."

Wally was still giggling.

"And I've been _busy,_ ok?" Nightwing regarded Wally with a half-smile. "You know, you always could make 'Robin' sound like a name. Like a real name, my name. Instead of a title."

Wally swallowed his bite of burger and chortled. "Oh, yeah? 'Nightwing' is a little harder to work with, Ro - _'__Nighty__? __Wings__?' _Do you have some sort of thing for birds?"

Nightwing snorted. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

He frowned, trying to recall. "So you've seen my face by now..."

"Yeah. Couple of times. It's kind hard to remember what you look like, though."

_Like __how __blue __your __eyes __are__. __But __I __guess __I__'__ll __always _recognize _it__ …_ Wally thought, feeling a little red around the ears.

Nightwing nervously fiddled with his mask, tapping its side on the table. "You know, even after I came to visit, I wasn't planning to tell you who I was."

"Hmm," replied Wally. "Actually, I'm sort of relieved. I kept thinking it was you - good to know I was right, like always." Wally smiled smugly and shrugged.

Wally really hadn't liked the idea that someone he didn't know felt so _familiar : _a stranger that knew the best way to sit on his back, knew the way around his hometown, made him _feel_ safe and kind of ... even though Wally didn't _know _him.

_But it's just Robin,_ and that was ok.

Wally eyed his costume critically over his burger. "Seriously, dude, _finger__stripes_? What were you thinking?"

"Oh, yeah?" the black-clad hero popped an eyebrow. "What if I told you that _you_ thought of them?"

"... really?"

Nightwing made a face. "Of course not. You could never come up with something so cool."

The redhead smirked. _He __was __definitely __Robin__._

"You're such a troll, _Dick__._"

"... pfft. I win."

Wally polished off his last burger and licked his fingertips. "Mmmm. _Fantastic_ as always. Even cold."

The black and blue hero snorted again. "They're pretty good.!But it takes _years_ for them to be 'fantastic'."

The acrobat giggled. "Did you see that? That was a 'complisult'. It's an insult disguised as a compliment. I came up with that myself; sweet, huh? - and _that_ was an 'explainabrag'." (**)

Wally's eyelids dropped halfway. "I see you've moved from defiling the English language to totally screwing it over."

Nightwing tossed his head in his trademark laugh. He wasn't trying to hide it anymore.

The speedster rolled his eyes. "So _how _did you get back here?"

Nightwing's mouth twisted into a sly smile. "Ever heard of the 'cosmic treadmill'?

"The … what? No. What a stupid name."

"Ok, that you _did_ come up with so don't look at me." Nightwing ran his fingers through his bangs and rested his temple in the palm of his hand. "Well, you haven't heard of it because _you _haven't invented it yet. With me."

Wally raised his eyebrows in disbelief. "No _way_."

"It's a treadmill that lets you - speedsters - alter your vibrational frequencies to bump you forward or back in time."

"_Sweet_. Does it make me rich?"

"... it's actually not that useful."

Wally choked a little. "I invent a _time __travel __machine_, and it's not that _useful_?"

"Well, yeah. For the most part, only speedsters can go forward or back in time since your bodies can withstand the vibrations. You are all apparently very sensitive to that sort of thing. Also, it's charged by hamsters."

"What?"

"And by hamsters, I mean _you,_" he grinned. "You have to run on the treadmill to power it. It only works at speedster speeds, and, more importantly, it requires the kind of control over speed and instant frequency adjustment that only you guys have. Not exactly ready for the mass market."

"Oh," Wally frowned.

"Also, time travel is pretty dangerous. Not only for the traveller, but, you know. Rewriting history and all." Nightwing looked guilty. "Playing a little fast and loose with that here."

"... but not on purpose, right?" Wally said.

"It wasn't in the plan to change anything," Nightwing flushed and coughed_. __I _really _should __have __gone __home __in __Gotham__. _"So, you built it - we built it - once I realized that I had to go back and do all the things I had done five years ago."

"Do you think that's how you got back here the first time? I guess at least I lived?" Wally wondered.

Nightwing shrugged. "I guess so. I'm not sure, of course. Anyway, _this _time, timeline #2, Bart and I - you haven't met him yet; he's a speedster, too - we modified it. So that it would send me back instead of him. He powered it, though."

"Why …?" Wally frowned. "... wait, couldn't that, like, kill you?"

Nightwing smiled ruefully. "Well, we figured it at least _got _me here the first time, or I couldn't have remembered myself being here. I have a force field that kept me together at least once."

"Did you get back home ok?" Wally said, worried.

"I don't know. Hasn't happened yet."

"Right. Of course not." Wally sipped on his soda and knit his brows. "Still …"

"Well, if any one of us had died these last two days, we'd be dead for the next five years, too. Maybe the ride home will kill me, but I would have at least those years with you all." Nightwing looked solemnly at his black and blue hands. "They're pretty nice years. And it had to be me."

Nightwing ran his finger over the condensation on his water glass thoughtfully. "It's worth it."

Wally frowned again and tried to avoid a mysterious blush creeping into his cheeks. He cleared his throat and took another drink of his soda, hooked his arm over his chair in an imitation of Nightwing, and grinned.

"Soooooo. What am I like? Do I get lots of layyydies?"

Nightwing opened his mouth and closed it.

"For, ah, a whil ... uhm." He fished for an answer and stifled a laugh. "... can't tell you. Don't, er, wanna change history."

Wally pouted into his soda. Nightwing stood up and patted him on the back, resisting the urge to ruffle Wally's red hair that shone in the light from the dining room chandelier.

"Don't worry. You ... you get enough."

He gathered the plates to bring them to the kitchen and dropped them into the sink, casually grabbing a towel from a nearby cupboard. It was pretty damn weird to watch the black-haired boy do dishes in his house like he lived there. When Nightwing opened door under the sink to fish out the soap, though, all of the pictures Wally had hidden slipped onto the linoleum in haphazard pile.

"Uh, whoops," Wally supplied sheepishly.

Nighwing rolled his eyes. "Spaz."

"I … I'll put those back." Wally flashed away with a handful, and the acrobat gathered up some of the loose pictures left behind. He put them on the fridge, where they belonged, under colorful alphabet magnets. One picture was of him, clad in sunglasses and a hoodie, and Wally at a picnic for the team in Happy Harbor. He placed it carefully on the door under an orange "L."

In three years time, it would be replaced with a picture of Wally and him on the beach in the Bahamas, nothing on either of their faces except light sunburns. Wally's arm would be slung around his shoulder, his own hand would be wrapped around Wally's far hip, and they would both be laughing as a tourist snapped their picture. _Will __it __still __be __there __someday__?_ Nightwing wondered idly.

Wally skidded to a stop in the kitchen just as Nightwing returned to the dishes, automatically biting the tips of his finger stripes and pulling to take off his first glove. The other followed, and Nightwing threw them nest to the sink as he turned on the water.

Wally gulped and shifted awkwardly, staring at Nightwing's pale hands and long, graceful fingers. _Christ__, __what __is _wrong _with __you__, __West__? __He__'__s __your __best __friend__._

He fished a Popsicle out of the freezer as a distraction. "Uh, you don't have to do that ..." Wally said, referring to the dishes.

"Don't be stupid. You cook, I clean, that's the deal. Unless, of course, we need to eat like, real food. Then I whip out my mad gourmet skills."

Wally snorted, green pop in hand. "What are we, married?" He laughed.

"..." Nightwing's thumb reflexively traced over a red indentation on his ring finger. He had left everything truly valuable at home.

He cleared his throat. "Not married, no. Uh, roommates."

Once all the dishes sat in the rack, he turned back to his best friend. Wally had one shoulder propped against the fridge, and one foot crossed casually over his ankle. And he was totally eating a popsicle.

Nightwing kind of went pale and then immediately flushed. Wally didn't notice.

"Uhm ..."

"Oh, you want one? Sorry." Wally dove back into the freezer. "Like I said, we also have ice cream."

"I guess I'll have one …"

"You like red, right?"

"Yeah."

As he turned around, Wally eyes widened in realization. "Oh my _God__, _Robs," he said again as the incredible situation hit him again. "You already _know_ everything."

Nightwing smirked. "I am from the future, and I know a lot about history, I suppose."

"You can tell us about the case! What the hell was Killer Frost up to with that thing?" Wally tossed him the popsicle and continued to suck on his.

"No. Absolutely not."

"But ..."

"I have to draw the line somewhere, Wally. Besides, what if I give you the wrong information? Things might be different now. Five years is a long time for stuff to change. I could get everyone killed."

"Fine." Wally pouted around his popsicle before he brightened again. "What about winning lottery numbers? Right?" he said excitedly.

Nightwing tossed his head back again and laughed out loud.

"How about it? We can split it 50/50."

"... 50/50?" Nightwing said incredulously. "So the guy who risks his neck to go back in time to save your life and actually _brings _the numbers gets only 50%?

Wally scowled. "It's not like you didn't save your life, too."

"Pfft. _I _had to make it." He frowned at the thought of the arrow coming at his chest while he was under mind control. "Somehow."

"But seriously, I'll buy the ticket ..."

"Wow, soooo generous."

"Ok, 60/40. It was my idea!"

Nightwing laughed. "It's fine. 50/50 is fine." He shook his head and began his popsicle. "Anyway, no. And you never change at all."

"Why would I?" Wally grinned … and then blanked. Nightwing wasn't exactly eating his popsicle in an obscene way, _it __was __just __sort __of_ …

He cleared his throat uncomfortably. And changed the subject to protect his sexual identity.

Wally sighed, "So, seriously, me and M'gann? She never gets over Supey?"

"Really? This still?" Nightwing brought his fingers to his forehead in resignation. "Not really, no. Sorry."

But Wally wasn't listening. He really hadn't cared for a year. It was just a distraction from …

The pop was starting to melt around Nightwing's fingers, and he slurped at the stick and his fingertips to catch it before returning to eating it … normally. Wally stared at his black-haired friend.

... _porny_.

Nightwing met his gaze in honest confusion. "Wha?" He said from around the popsicle.

"... God, your eyes are blue," Wally whispered.

Nightwing paused, holding the popsicle half-way out of his mouth. All of his senses sharpened: the linoleum counter dug into his back; the room still smelt like freshly cooked hamburgers; the popsicle was cold against his lips, and Wally was staring at him with bright green eyes and parted lips stained with bright green popsicle.

Wally's eyes widened as Nightwing inhaled deeply and held the breath, squeezing his eyes tightly shut. His hands trembled a little.

_Crap__, __I __what __am __I __saying__?_ Wally thought, embarrassed. _I __weirded __him __ou__ … _

Then Wally's back was against the fridge, and he could feel Nightwing's breath on his face, cool and sweet. Nightwing's crystal blue eyes, no more than two inches away, aligned exactly with his own.

_Tall__. __And__, __uh__, __handsome__ (__what__?)_, _and _… and it wasn't until Nightwing closed his eyes that Wally even noticed that Nighting had leaned in, and Wally's own lips were now pressed softly against his friend's red, sticky, sweet ones.

_And __kissing __me__._

"Spoilers," Nightwing whispered softly into his mouth. (*)

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><p><em>AN:<em> *_FUCK YEAH RIVER SONG. Seriously, how could I write a time travel story without that line?_

_** Also, Community fans might recognize Nightwing's wordplay. I think I changed "complisult" but hey, it's Earth-16. I cannot recommend this show enough, and it has one of the best bromances of all time in it. DUDE seriously, check it out._

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><p><strong>Also! I want to clarify something from a review I got. :)<strong>

You mean Nightwing really does do that too with the word abuse? Man, I got to get me some trades. So far, all I actually own with 'Wing is JLA/Titans: Technis (which I absolutely adore.)**  
><strong>

_Every version of everyone is still from Earth-16 (well, a slash version of Earth-16, I guess)._

_Nightwing #2 is a time-travel generated version of YJ!Robin. It's just that time travel has to duplicate you, if only for a short while, and in my version of time travel, those versions aren't necessarily stable._

_But they're all still fundamentally word-play obsessed YJ!Robin. :)_

_So you won't find Earth-1!Nightwing (the main Nightwing) making jokes in the trades _as far as I know_. He might do that. :) I've never seen it._


	13. Part I: Getting to Like You

_Onwards and Upwards! Obviously, there will be kissing in this chapter! So, light slash applies!_

_I apologize for the long delay! Hopefully things will move faster. Also, important AN at the end, so please check it out and let me know if you have an opinion. :) _

_As always, thanks to my betas lyricalentropy and noowestayandgetcaught,** AND TO YOU GUYS.** All your kind feedback _makes my life so much better_. I get up in the morning for it. _

_I also got another piece of fanart from mr. sketchy from the last chapter, who is like, the amazingest. You can find it here: _http :/ / oi52. tinypic. com/ ok8lkw. jpg _Check him out here:_ mrsketchy . deviantart. com

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><p>Nightwing planted his hands on the refrigerator on either side of Wally's head, still holding his red popsicle out gingerly in his left hand. Wally's lips opened, just slightly, in shock, and the acrobat gently slipped his tongue past Wally's teeth.<p>

His tongue was cold from the iced treat, and Wally sucked in a breath as his heart rate picked up. He tensed and held his hands out, sort of floating midair, because _jeezus what was Robin doing? _Wally froze for a second. Or maybe 60. Time wasn't really making sense right now.

He felt like Nightwing had punched him in the stomach in the nicest possible way.

Wally's green popsicle fell to the floor with a _plop_. The raven-haired hero broke away and stared at the green ice melting on the floor; he sighed and closed his eyes.

"Sorry, I'm sorry." He straightened his arms and dropped his head between them, staring awkwardly at the floor. His hair lightly brushed Wally's insignia, and he was breathing unevenly.

"... _are _we married?" Wally said hoarsely.

Nightwing's voice fell to a whisper. "I … I just miss this so much."

"... 'miss this'?" the red-head croaked.

Nightwing's gaze shifted, and he stared at Wally intensely, looking a little sick, and - and _getting __mad_. He sucked in a breath.

"You … you …" He was trying to hang on and failing.

Wally's eyes widened as Nightwing pulled back a fist like he was going to full-on - _good __God_, _punch __me __in __the __face__. _He winced as his best friend's arm flew past him; Nightwing stepped to the left, and the boy's right fist landed in the kitchen wall between the peninsula and the doorway. Wally started at the bang, staring at the shaking boy.

"_CHRIST_, you ... you arrogant fucking _show__-__off_," Nightwing shouted, fist still planted in the wall. "You goddamn _hero_. You _knew_ your powers were hurting you. Maybe even _killing_ you. But you still … you still …"

He spun around and glared at Wally. It was terrifying. "Barry could have _done _it, _idiot_. He could have done it. But you _had _to be the superhero and you went too fast and lost control and Barry went after you and we almost lost him _too_ and you're no good to _anyone_ dead."

His eyes flashed again. "Were you _suicidal_? Did you want to go out with a goddamn _bang_? You're more than your stupid powers, dumbass. You were so much more than that to …"

Then he broke. Nightwing fell to his hands and knees on the floor, and he was crying, sobbing. The popsicle was _still _in his hands, making a red puddle on the floor and bleeding into his tears on the scuffed yellow linoleum. Wally stood helplessly over the Nightwing at his feet. His chest hurt, and he was having a really hard time catching his breath.

He dropped to his knees next to his … friend.

And he had no idea what to say.

'_It __will __be __ok'_ didn't cut it for some reason.

"Robs," he rasped, putting a hand on his shoulder.

"It's _Dick_ now," he growled.

Nightwing's head still hung loosely from his shoulders, the tufts of his black bangs almost touching the floor. The yellow-and-red boy fell back against the fridge and sat, one knee up, one folded beneath him, staring at Dick's back. Nightwing brought his forearm to his eyes to wipe his eyes.

Nightwing left the red popsicle on the floor and crawled next to Wally, kneeling facing the refridgerator. He leaned forward until his forehead hit the fridge door, so that he didn't have to look Wally in the eye. The orange letter B magnet dug into his head just above his eyebrow.

"We were _working_ on it." His voice was flat now, spent, and he spoke to floor. "I know it was _hard__. _But even if you had to give up … even if you had to give up running, you could have helped _Oracle_ or something. You were so fucking _brilliant__._ You would have _always_ had a place."

_'You__'__ll __get __over __me__, __you__'__ll __find __someone __better'_ … didn't cut it either. Even if it was probably true.

A moment of silence passed between them, until Nightwing slid off his knees to the side until his head just touched Wally's shoulder.

"God, I loved you," he whispered. "... and you just _evaporated_ …"

Wally really didn't know what to say to that.

"Please. Please don't talk about me in the past tense, Rob - Dick," he murmured finally.

Dick barked a short, dry laugh as his head flopped further to the side; his goggles dug into Wally's collarbone.

"Look at me, getting therapy from my dea - _Dammit__. _I swore I wouldn't do this. I _swore_ I wouldn't mess with the timeline. Not on purpose, anyway. ... _Fuck__._"

He backed up, pressing the heels of his palms into his bloodshot eyes and groaned in frustration. "I wasn't even going to _talk_ to you, but you almost _died _out there -"

"- the avalanche -" Wally said.

" - then everything went to hell anyway, and things were just _different_. Who _knows _what timeline I'm going back to? If there's anything left of it at all. So … so I told myself I just wanted to _see _you … and then, just get a lift back here; you wouldn't know who I was, and ... then just maybe _hang__out_ one last time; that couldn't hurt, right? And … and …"

His voice dropped to a whisper, and his head fell to Wally's chest. "... I don't care care _what _you call me, Wally; I just wanted to hear you say my _name_. Any of them."

Wally shivered at the way Nightwing said _his_ name.

Nightwing's head was heavy, so heavy. He sat still, almost calm, but his breath came in small, subtle, erratic bursts. It was almost imperceptible, but Wally noticed.

"I guess that's why I … why I didn't run the treadmill while you were …"

Nightwing shook his head. "You didn't even get to see a test run. I had to piece the rest together from your stupid scrawl."

Nightwing couldn't help but smile a little against Wally's collarbone.

The acrobat finally rocked back and braced his arms across his knees folded up in front of him. "I thought I came to save us and _leave_, and only because I _had _to … and because I really wanted the next five years with you."

"But that's not _actually _what I came for, not even to save _me_," he choked out. "I came to tell _you _not to _do_ it, and I came because I just really, _really _miss you."

"Dick -" Wally began.

Nightwing made a strange whimpering sound at the sound of his real name. "… don't _do _this to me," he whined, to no one in particular.

He suddenly shifted up onto his knees and straddled Wally's outstretched leg, his right knee slipping behind the thigh of Wally's propped up left knee.

"... _please_ don-"

But he couldn't finish his sentence. Cupping Wally's cheeks in his hands, Nightwing kissed the speedster, slowly, carefully, and then so hard that Wally's head knocked back against the fridge - until Wally met his friend's force and returned the kiss.

Wally was totally falling off a cliff as the black-haired boy ran his tongue over his lips. It was so warm, and he tasted so _good_. He tentatively ran his hands down his friend's black torso until he hit his hipbones. Wally's face flushed, and his heart thrummed, and it was _so __so_ intense that he started vibrating a little.

_God__._

Overwhelming didn't _even__ ... _he _died_ - he _died _in five years, and Robin went _back __in __time_ to _kiss_ him, and it was salty and sweet, and now Wally now knew how he tasted when he'd just had a cherry popsicle and _cried_; he smelled almost the same, and the texture of his bare hands on his face - _when __was __the __last __time __he__'__d __felt __Robin__'__s __bare __hands__? _- and, _God_, _GOD__, _his _tongue __in __his __mouth_, his hand had moved to his _thigh__, _and _ … _

The vibrations came over him in stuttering waves, so good that it _hurt_. He made a strangled cry into the kiss, and Nightwing backed away, looking alarmed.

"Get up, get up," he ordered, grasping Wally's hand and pulling him to his feet. He was still trembling chaotically.

"... what's …"

Nightwing moved behind him, sliding one arm in front of Wally's yellow torso, and pressed an index finger over the rib Wally had broken. He steadied him and pushed three fingers of his other hand in a triangular shape into the speedster's mid-back around his spine. Wally tensed and cried out, but the trembling stopped. Nightwing shuddered and gasped and then fell quiet.

Wally panted. "... what the hell was that?"

Still standing behind Wally, Nightwing pursed his lips, trying to decide whether or not it was a good idea to explain.

"It's probably ... your powers overloading," he finally said. "At least, that was our 'working hypothesis'." He grinned softly.

"Barry thinks it's because you got your powers before adolescence. As your body grew up, it matured erratically - sometimes too fast, maybe sometimes not fast enough. We were hoping you'd grow out of it," his voice cracked. "... if you survived."

Wally nodded numbly.

"Batman found pressure points that released some extra energy that you generated. It seemed to help," Nightwing went on, smiling a little more broadly. "We called … me your lighting rod. Or lighting 'Rob.' Heh. You wer - are such a dork."

He paused, frowning. "... I never made the connection between your broken rib and the fourth pressure point. It was years later that we found the combination. I wonder why that is."

Nightwing tucked the top of his head between Wally's shoulder blades and gently ran his thumb over the injury, grinning mischievously. "Though this spot did stay sensitive in general for a _long_ time."

Wally flushed.

He turned Wally around. "Regardless, it wasn't enough. Maybe it was just too little too late. No one _knew_."

Nightwing shook his head and laughed dismissively. "If she had just _said __something_. But maybe Ar - probably she just liked to see you _squirm_." Nightwing sounded bitter, but he immediately shook his head. "No, no. No one knew. That's not fair."

"... she?" Wally said weakly, an artificial hopeful note in his voice, but he was entirely joking.

Nightwing stared for a second, incredulous, but then he laughed and dropped his head on Wally's shoulder.

"God, you insufferable man-slut." He was almost giggling now.

Wally half-smiled, relieved that some of the tension was diffused. He swallowed and reached up, tentatively petting Rob- Nightwing's hair.

"... You taste the same," the raven-headed hero murmured.

"I always taste like green popsicle?"

"You know what I mean."

His breath was so _hot _on Wally's collarbone.

"I'm … I'm s-sorry," Wally stuttered.

Nightwing paused.

"Don't _ever_ say that," he whispered sadly. "Because I can't _ever _forgive you."

Wally stood motionless. His stomach hurt so badly, and he thought he might cry.

"I can't really handle this, Robs," whispered Wally. "I don't know what to do."

Nightwing's gaze softened, and he nodded sadly. "Yeah. I understand."

He let Wally go and, grabbing a paper towel from the counter, bent down to pick up the popsicles. "I know exactly how you feel."

Nightwing tossed the wooden sticks in the trash and grabbed his gloves from beside the sink. He kind of strolled backwards toward the kitchen entrance, smiling ruefully at Wally, who stared at the floor. "I'll head out now."

Wally nodded numbly. "..."

"I set the time anomaly to open here in a few hours, and … I dunno. Maybe … maybe I'll even see you on the other side." Nightwing knotted his eyebrows. "I guess enough has changed that it's possible."

He paused, his hand on the doorway. "Maybe," the brunette finished softly.

"..." The speedster wore a pained expression. _I _died _on __Robin__. __Christ__, __I __guess __I __was __his _family_. __Just __like__ …_

Nightwing's soft voice interrupted his thoughts. "Just - please - remember those pressure points, ok? Can … can I actually show you one more time?"

Nightwing returned, softly pressing three fingers into Wally's back and …

Wally cracked. _How __could __I _do _that __to _Robin_?_

He spun around, grabbed Nightwing's hips, and, before either of them could breathe, he pinned the black-haired boy against the wall, covering the hole he had punched into it five minutes before.

"No," Wally whispered, pained. "Don't go_."_

His eyes had a fevered, wild glint to them now, and he trapped Nightwing's face carefully between two palms.

"Pl … please kiss me again," Wally said softly, his breath warm on Nightwing's lips.

Nightwing's mouth dropped open in surprise, but Wally didn't give him an opening anyway, and kissed him ferociously, awkwardly, _desperately_. Their teeth clicked, and Dick smiled and squirmed under Wally's familiar touch, taste, lips. He couldn't help but close his eyes and moan, low and loud into Wally's mouth. Wally slipped a thigh between his legs and groaned.

"_God_, Wally, I wish -" Nighwing panted breathlessly.

"Ok."

"- that I could make-ou- what?" Dick pulled back and looked at Wally in confusion.

"Yes, any - anything" murmured Wally. His voice cracked a little. "Ok."

Dick's mouth hung slack, "I - uhm -"

Wally's heart was humming so fast that Dick couldn't make out individual beats. Wally squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his mouth close to Nightwing's and spoke against the soft skin of his pink lips.

"You say you can never forgive me for what I've done, what I will do - what I _did__,_" Wally continued, breathless, his words bleeding into the others. Dick could feel the touch of every syllable; if Wally had made no sound he felt he would still understand him, like he was reading Braille.

"But what matters is that I will never, ever forgive _myself_, Robs - Dick. _Never_."

Nightwing's breath hitched, his hands trembling under Wally's ribs. He backed up and looked carefully into the speedster's eyes; Wally gulped but returned his gaze.

"Please, I … anything. I want to," the red head whispered shyly. His freckles stood out, small brown dots against his bright red cheeks. "... Please ... Dick."

Nightwing whimpered brokenly, ears flushing and his palms tingling. He kissed Wally softly, wet and warm. Without breaking the kiss, he reached down for Wally's knees.

And he scooped him up bridal style.

Wally broke their kiss and curled his lip in protest." … what the hell, Robs?"

"Shut up," Nightwing said as he staggered up the stairs, grinning mischievously. "It's not every day I'll get to do this, shorty."

He knew exactly how to get to Wally's room.

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><p><em>Soooo. As you can tell the next chapters will be slashity slash slash pronz slash. There is no way that I can in good conscience call it "rated T," but it's a little sad to drive readers away who avoid M fics from a story that is T for 40,000 words and M for like 5,000 at most. <em>

_Should I keep the chapters in here but put **REALLY LOUD M** ratings at the top, or should I separate them off into their own short story and just have the link here? I'm leaning toward the latter ... They'll be skippable. There's one very important plot point, but I'll try to incorporate it into the morning after. :)_

_It'd be called "Sleeping with the Anomaly." *snrk*_

_Also! For those of you rightfully wondering how old everyone is, this takes place at least a year-and-a-half after the show: **Wally is more than 16 and a half, and Nightwing just turned 19**. Robin is currently 14, and Wally dies around 20._

_I needed it to be soon enough that Wally hadn't dated anyone seriously before, but late enough that Nightwing and Wally had time to date other people before getting together, and with still enough time for them to be together and for Wally to be dead. That's the only reason Wally isn't 17._

_I have a lot of squicks writing anything below the waist before everyone is 16, and even then ... Wally is actually 17 in my head!canon for my own story. ~~~( ^_^;)_


	14. Part I: Sleeping with the Anomaly

_Ok! Finally! I'm sorry for the long delay! It turns out I find writing prons kind of embarrassing (not that I don't like it!), and so this just took forever._

_So have your 3000 words of notty. :) Longest chapter so far._

_There's actually a little more out there, but I'll incorporate parts of THAT later on as timey-wimey wibbly-wobbly ... stuff._

_I also, of course, need to give a **BIG THANK YO**U to my betas Lyricalentropy (lyricalentropy. tumblr . com) who is basically an editor, and Zeraphie (kingburu .tumblr . com)! I especially thank Zeraphie for the line marked with the (*) that she gave me when she trolled my document. MWAH. _

_Zeraphie has also done some _FREAKING_ amazing art for this that I talk about in the non-prony chapter._

_As always, _**THANK YOU GUYS SO MUCH**_ for your kind reviews and feedback and general support. I ... this is really complex, and it makes it much easier to get through knowing that you guys want to read it!_

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><p><strong>PLEASE READ THIS NOTE <strong>PLEASE READ THIS NOTE <strong>PLEASE READ THIS NOTE <strong>****PLEASE READ THIS NOTE **PLEASE READ THIS NOTE **PLEASE READ THIS NOTE ********

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><p><em><strong>So because this chapter is MATURE, I've published it in its own story with the proper rating.<strong>_

_**The first couple paragraphs and the final are here, but this chapter is skippable from a plot point of view if slash is not your thing.**_

**_YOU CAN FIND THE FULL CHAPTER HERE (take out the spaces): _**

**_ht tp : / / www .fanfiction. net/ s/ 7244629/ 1/_**

**WALLY IS 16 and DICK IS 19! :) ****:)**

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><p>Wally made a small noise into their kiss as Nightwing passed his room: "It's ov..."<p>

Dick broke away and grinned wryly. "Wally, as amazingly hot as it is that your uniform is torn to shreds, I don't exactly relish the taste of burnt lycra and rubber. Also - and I don't know about you - but I didn't really have access to a hot shower for two days in the Yukon."

Wally blushed bright red. "Uh, right."

Dick elbowed open the handle two doors down, and deposited Wally on the mat in the guest bathroom. The shower knob squeaked as Dick rotated it _just_ into that centimeter-wide sweet spot between too hot and too cold, and as he turned back to Wally, his crystal blue eyes gleamed.

Wally kind of stared, still a little shell shocked, and Nightwing flushed as he caught the speedsters' shyness. And _Christ,_ Dick's heart was pounding, like he'd never done this before, like it was his first time ever; it had only been months, but it felt like years.

"Uhm... we don't ever …" Dick murmured. "We don't _ever _have to do anything you don't want to, ok?"

_Rule #1: Don't scare Wally off._ _At all._

He slipped his thumbs gently between Wally's hood and his ears and tilted his head, asking for permission to take it off. Wally closed his eyes shut and nodded vigorously; his little ear cuffs slid down the back of his neck. Nightwing almost reverently ran the tips of his calloused fingers over the red marks where the lycra had dug into Wally's freckled cheeks.

Wally breathed unevenly at Dick's touch, eyelids sliding half-closed over his bright green irises. Before Dick drew his hand away to undo the rest of the speedster's skin-tight costume, Wally reached up and gently cupped the back of Dick's hand, bringing the base of the blue-eyed boy's palm to his lips. Not taking his eyes off Dick's face, he shyly ran his tongue over his palm and up one finger.

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><p><em><strong>You can read the rest here: ht tp : /www. fanfiction. net/ s/ 7244629/ 1/**_


	15. I: Getting to Hope You Like Me

_Hello everyone! I'm sorry for the long delay! I'm double posting this note for those of you who skipped the slash last chapter. _

_Thank you for coming back. :D It turns out I find writing prons very embarrassing, and so the previous chapter took forever!_

_The good news is that I have the next _TWO_ essentially written (editing only). _

_I also, of course, need to give a **BIG THANK YOU** to my betas Lyricalentropy (lyricalentropy. tumblr . com) who is basically an editor, and Zeraphie (kingburu .tumblr . com)! _

_Zeraphie has also done some FREAKING amazing art for this! **SHE'S MAKING A FREAKING MANGA.** She's a damn **MACHINE**. And I can't cry enough tears of joy over this. **I CANNOT** **EVEN**. _

_You can see it and tons of other awesome sketches here! **htt p :/ /bit. ly/ jEBFnp**_

_Here is HER comic: **heart-strings. smack jeeves. co m**_

_**_As always, _**THANK YOU GUYS SO MUCH**_ for your kind reviews and feedback and general support. I ... this is really complex, and it makes it much easier to get through knowing that you guys want to read it!_**_

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><p>It wasn't <em>quite <em>dawn when Wally and Dick collapsed back into bed, spent, satiated, and happy. Dick lazily toweled off his head from the second shower that night, when he rolled over onto his back and something crinkled beneath him. It was the half of Wally's Star Trek reboot poster that he had destroyed a few minutes before.

"Uhm," he said, as he handed the left side of Chris Pine's face and Zachary Quinto's ear to Wally. "Sorry about this."

Wally eyes widened. "Noooo …" he whimpered.

"Actually, you'll probably want to get another one." He leaned into his friend's ear and whispered huskily, "This was supposed to come down in 2014."

"... aw, man ..."

"I'll make it up to you. Ask me to give you a new one for your birthday," Dick snickered.

Wally snorted and put the poster on his desk chair. "That hardly seems fair."

"Life rarely is," Dick commented as he pulled Wally back into bed next to him. Wally _hmmed _happily as Dick nuzzled his head into the speedster's neck; the ginger squirmed when Dick's tongue tickled the now over-sensitive skin along the bottom of his jaw.

"Dude," Wally protested, an irrepressible, wry smile winding across his face. When Dick didn't let up, he slipped out from under him, trying not to laugh as he straddled the dark-haired boy and pinned his wrists above him.

"Dude, stop," he whined.

Dick stared happily into Wally's emerald green eyes and relaxed into his grip. A quiet moment passed, and Wally stared back thoughtfully at the brunette.

"So, Rob - er, Dick."

"Mmmhm?"

"... what does this mean?" Wally knitted his brow. "Am I ... we're, uhm …?"

"... boyfriends? … gay?" Dick finished and shrugged in his awkward position. "I dunno. I mean, we've both had girlfriends. And I, at least, have never been into any other guys. And if you have, you never told me, so ... whatever that is. Does it matter?"

"No, not really ... I … wait. Girlfriends? Who?"

"I'm sure you'll find out." Dick grinned wickedly. "Anyway, you cashed your v-card in with _me_ this time."

"I regret nothing," Wally smirked.

"... I'm glad." Dick said, a little relieved, frankly. "Really glad."

_I hope it stays that way._

Wally sat up, letting his gaze fall to a couple dark bruises and a bright red bite mark on Dick's collarbone. They were fresh.

His eyes widened. "Oh - g- god, did I do that?" he stuttered.

Dick laughed. "Yeeeeah."

"I'm so sorry; I didn't even kno -" Wally's cheeks flamed red.

"It's ok!" Dick laughed again. "It, ah, comes with the territory,".

He waggled his eyebrows at the usually oh-so "experienced" redhead. "But you knew that, _riiight_?"

Wally looked away. "Well, I, of course, but I … wasn't sure you could handle it …" he fumbled.

Nightwing chuckled. "_Pfft_. They don't hurt."

He poked at a two bruises on Wally's neck, each already half-healed. "Did you mind these?" he teased.

"No, not really," Wally mumbled, embarrassed.

He let his eyes fall further down Dick's torso, his smile fading as he studied the scars mottling Dick's otherwise perfect, pale skin. One of Dick's wrists fell free as Wally ran a finger over the acrobat's arm and down his shoulder, mapping out each little ridge and crevice left by acts of heroism in battle. Dick sighed sadly at the redhead's concerned expression.

"You put yourself in as much danger as I do," he patiently reminded the speedster. "In fact, what you do is probably even more painful sometimes."

"I guess," Wally murmured, distracted by two particularly red, deep, round scars left by wounds just under Dick's ribs. "But you ... you have to remember it all. Every fight, every second. Everything is written right here. And … it's like … you read it every time you look in the mirror."

Dick cocked an eyebrow. "I believe the book's titled _A Tale of a Goddamn BAMF_."

Wally snickered and leaned down to plant a if kisses along a string of small, pale raised lines an inch or so below his collarbone. Dick arched into Wally's touch.

"Mmm... poetic words, coming from you," the acrobat said softly.

"Maybe," Wally demurred. His fingertips moved back to the round wounds. "Robs ... are these gunshot wounds?"

Dick flushed and looked away. "Kind of."

Wally's eyes widened. "Kind of? When? Wha -"

"I got careless," Nightwing interrupted. He hesitated. "... it was a while ago. I'm fine."

"Oh." Wally saw through Dick's lame attempt to hide the fact he'd "gotten careless" after Wally had died. "Who was it?" he pressed softly.

"The Light. Actually, it was a run in with the Sportsmaster."

Wally frowned.

"I'm ok now," Dick reassured him again. Especially now, he thought as he freed one hand from Wally's grasp and cupped the red-head's jawbone.

"I guess, yeah. You know …" the speedster began, "You seem … even with all of this bad stuff that's happened …"

"Yeah?"

"You seem more … relaxed? Happy? Than you do right now. I mean more than the you-you, er the right-now-is-Robin-you."

Dick smiled sadly. "Well, these are sort of special circumstances," he said as he ran his free hand down Wally's chest, "but yeah. It wasn't always easy being president of our little fan club."

"But I keep you happy, right?" Wally smirked.

Dick snorted.

"You're _welcome_."

"Yeah, I guess idiocy is a sexually transmitted disease."

Wally narrowed his eyes. "Ha ha."

"... Yeah," Dick admitted. "You keep me ..."

Dick looked away sadly.

"... what happens, Dick?" Wally said, almost inaudibly.

Nightwing sighed and put his palms to his face.

"I … if I'm not going to tell you about our girlfriends, then I … don't make me tell you. Just … be careful. If you don't push yourself too hard, it may not happen. It may not happen _anyway._"

He ran his thumb lightly along Wally's lower lip. "Please."

Wally nodded solemnly. "I won't do that to you," he whispered.

Nightwing squirmed a little as Wally returned to running his hands soothingly up and down Dick's torso.

"Huh …" Wally whispered.

It was odd. Sometimes what he saw didn't quite match what he felt. He knitted his brows.

"What the...? Just a sec."

When Wally popped up and snapped on the light, Dick protested weakly and threw his forearm over his eyes. Wally pulled on a pair of boxers and lay back down next to Dick, sliding his hands over his right side.

The skin felt raised there, uneven and rough, but Dick's side looked relatively smooth. Wally squinted hard.

"Did you get hurt here?"

"Hrm?" Dick replied. "No - not you know, more than usual."

Wally guided Dick's hand over the rough area. "Do you feel that?"

"Feel what?"

Wally frowned deeply. "Weird."

He kind of unfocused his eyes, and a faint web of red scars appeared, like a projection over his side. That's where Robin was burned.

And then they were gone.

"Weird," he repeated. My imagination?

"I must be tired," Wally sighed as he rolled onto his back.

"I know I am," Dick said mischievously.

"... Yeah," Wally said, flushing dark red. "So. Uhm. Is this like, cheating?"

Dick rolled onto his stomach and braced himself on his arms.

"'Cheating?'" Dick cocked an eyebrow. "You, ah, neglected to mention that you're dating someone to me. Now. And … then."

"What? No! Dude, you'd be the first to know. Or, uh, I guess I mean technically you _would have been_ the first to know?" Wally folded his arms in concentration. "I just … it's not that this is cheating on … anyone. Well, maybe? I don't know. Just, something about it … feels like a cheat."

"Like video game cheat codes?"

"Yeah. Something like that."

"I guess I shouldn't tell you about _this_, though," Wally said softly, sadly. "Like, the next time I see you."

"... Yeah." Dick agreed.

"Does it count as not-a-secret since you already know?"

"... Sure. Why not?"

The brunette kissed Wally softly and ran his fingers through his red locks. Wally stifled a yawn as he relaxed under Dick's attentions.

"How much time do you have?"

"'Till morning," Dick assured him. "I should probably sleep."

"Mmm, ok," the speedster mumbled as his eyes drifted closed, one arm threading itself under Dick's neck.

Dick propped himself up on his side and stayed awake until Wally's breathing evened. _This might be the last time I see this,_ he thought, enjoying the familiar rhythm and Wally's innocent expression. He traced between the three darkest freckles scattered across Wally's cheeks, and then he drifted to sleep beside him.

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><p>A few hours later, the holowatch communicator beeped almost imperceptibly in Dick's ear. He stirred and unwound himself from Wally's torso, sliding carefully away from his grasp. Wally's red eyebrows knitted, but he didn't stir. The acrobat stretched and gently ran his fingers over his creased brow and smiled as the sleeping boy relaxed. Wally was so beautiful in the pale morning light.<p>

As he slipped out of bed and into his costume, pangs of guilt started to catch up to him for giving into all his feelings last night.

_How did I think this was a good idea? Have I screwed things up for good? _

Dick grimaced. _Maybe if I just sneak out now, he'll think I was just a crazy dream._

… _a really vivid, crazy dream that rips his posters in half. _

_Sigh_.

Nightwing paused over the resting speedster, hands poised at his bangs, fingertips barely brushing his forehead. Dick recognized the even, deep rise and fall his chest that indicated Wally was totally exhausted from the mission and … well, er, other stuff. Deeply torn between waking him and letting him sleep, the brunette's chest tightened, and his eyes stung. Finally, he shook his head.

_If I wake him now, I will never leave. Ever_.

After what felt like an eternity - _if only it _were _an eternity_ - Dick finally settled on ghosting his lips across Wally's soft pink ones.

"I love you," he whispered. "I love you so much, Wally West. I always have, and I always - for at least as long as I exist - I always will."

Then he slipped out the window.


	16. I: Because of All That Is New

_**AN**: Onward! _If you missed it before, please check out the links to Zeraphie's amazing art posted in the notes of the previous chapter. __

__As always, thanks to my betas Lyricalentropy, All Blue Chaser, Val-Creative, Zeraphie,** AND TO YOU GUYS.** As always, all your kind feedback _makes my life** so much bette**r_. I get up in the morning for it.__

_Light slash warning applies!_

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><p>About a mile away, Dick slowed to a light jog in an abandoned field outside the city limits. Central City was chill in the early spring air, and light frost dusted the grasses ahead of him.<p>

A quick check of his his holowatch indicated that he had about five minutes to spare. T-minus six minutes and fourteen seconds, actually.

He resisted the urge to push back the portal another yet another couple of hours so that he could run back and have breakfast with Wally. Putting off his trip home even this long, though, was really pushing his luck. He and Bart had planned to give him a day or so of padding, but it was down to the wire, frankly. The holowatch beeped in response to the confirmation code. Nightwing stared at his feet in the soft mud and as waited in morning breeze for the portal to charge up.

"What the hell, Dick?"

Ok, so it hadn't been just a breeze. The speedster planted his hands firmly on his pj-clad hips in front of Dick and glared at him. The acrobat sucked in a breath and grimaced guiltily.

"You shouldn't be here," he admonished.

"I shouldn't _be _here?" Wally growled. "Not even a damn goodbye?"

Dick gave a frustrated, sad sigh and put on his because-I-said-so voice. "If I didn't leave immediately, I wouldn't have left at all, West."

His voice broke. "- I'm sorry," he croaked, unable to make eye contact.

Wally glared at the ground now, pouting a little. He was barefoot, and the morning dew soaked the hem of his yellow flannel pjs.

"... do you _have _to go at all?" he whispered. He was trembling slightly.

Nightwing swallowed, and a truly pained expression flitted across his features.

He finally raised his eyebrows and snorted. "I don't think space and time would appreciate that. I'm pretty sure they're pissed at me now."

"But we don't know what will happen to you when you leave." Wally's bright green eyes met Dick's intently, almost angrily.

Nightwing smiled weakly. "What do you mean? In a of couple days, I'll be dragging myself back to Mr. Ayamanti's 8 am English class and counting down the minutes until the next mission."

Which was mostly, probably, not quite true. Not really. The boy recovering at home was not - would not be - the one standing in the field that damp morning, about to hop on the time train to who-knows-where. This Robin - Robin #3 - wouldn't live the life of the brunette in front of Wally, and Nightwing #2 had the unblemished right side to prove it.

Wally unconsciously brushed Dick's long bangs from his eyes. They were still a little damp from the shower, and it made them so shiny and soft.

"How long...?" Wally whispered.

"How long until what?"

"How long …" Wally paused, his fingers hovering just over Dick's right ear. … _before I can kiss you again? Tear down the posters on your wall? Tell you that I lo_-

"... before we, uh, you know."

Nightwing grinned.

"I hate it when the trailer gives away the whole plot," he murmured, catching Wally's wrist and planting a little kiss over the delicate bones there. "In all honesty, I don't know anymore."

Intertwining their fingers, Dick let Wally's hand drop in-between them. "It … took a while before. It took me a long time to understand, and you longer, really. We weren't really together for that much time … "

"But it will happen, right?"

"... sure." Dick hedged. "Something has to be … constant, right? I started it, I guess, and, frankly, if this time around _you _have to be patient with _me_, then turnabout is_ fair play_, dude. Just let things … happen."

A soft hum permeated the air around them.

"That's my ride home."

Wally frowned, and Dick drew him close, wrapping his arms around his neck into a tight hug. Wally was vibrating visibly now.

"... you ok?" Nightwing said.

Wally shut his eyes and nodded; Dick _hmmm'd_ in worry, but the pj-clad boy gradually stilled. Wally could feel Nightwing open his mouth by his ear, like he wanted to say something.

"..."

"Yeah?"

Dick hesitated. "Be nice to Arty, ok?"

Wally pulled away. "What?"

"She has a lot going on, alright?"

Wally grimaced. "Way to kill the mood, dude."

"And … don't ever change, West." Dick squeezed him again, smiling.

The hum was a buzz now, louder by the second, and the air behind Wally began to shimmer. Wally began to tremble again, whirring erratically, more violently as the portal opened. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to make the fit pass.

"Wally …" Dick murmured.

"... it hurts," he whispered.

"I don't remember it being this bad so soon," Dick fretted. "Did you just not tell anyone?" He wrapped his arm around Wally's back, pressing the three pressure points and the spot just under his ribs. "But this should always help - remember it _exactly_."

He pressed hard.

"Agh!" Dick gasped loudly this time as the excess energy off Wally drained through him, and the speedster stopped whirring. "Wow, that one was … strong."

"It _hurts _you?"

Dick shook his head. "No, no. Just kind of tingles. I don't know - maybe like my foot fell asleep, but all over? It goes away really fast."

Wally narrowed his eyes.

"Look, I've been doing that for _years_, and no one ever found any evidence that it hurt me or anyone else. And we checked! Believe me, Batman checked," Dick laughed.

He ran his blue and black gloves over the sides of Wally's face, cupping his ears. "I promise. You only need to worry about yourself. Please. _Please._"

And he drew Wally's freckled faced to him and kissed him good bye. Dick savored the soft brush of Wally's breath on his lips, the way Wally's green eyes fluttered closed when Dick ran his hands under his chin and his thumbs over his cheeks. His sweet citrus-y taste, the way he could feel Wally's warmth even through his Kevlar suit.

"I'll see you this Saturday for the next mission, Wally West #3," he whispered, tears stinging the corners of his eyes.

The redhead tucked his face in the crook of the acrobat's neck. "Yeah, Nightwing #2."

Wally shuddered, trying not to cry.

Dick finally stepped back and punched some data into his holowatch. He pulled a pad of paper and pen from his uniform and scribbled a series of numbers on it.

"Here," he said, handing the slip of paper to Wally. "I don't think this will break anything … else."

Wally turned over the largish scrap; it was about the size of a grocery list. Eight numbers and a date: 06/23/2015. "What's this?"

Nightwing grinned. " … cheat codes."

Lottery numbers. Wally shook his head, smiling as Nightwing wandered back toward the shifting air. If he squinted, Wally could see houses that weren't supposed to be in the field through the portal space; as Dick approached, the background shifted, faster and faster, until it was a white blur. The whir of the portal's hum overpowered them now, like standing at the base of a jet engine about to take off.

Dick turned, inches from the edge and waved. "I love you!" he mouthed as the light surrounded him.

"You hang on, Dick!" Wally shouted after him. "I'll … I'll catch up, alright?"

Then Wally's vision whited out for a moment, and when he opened his eyes, Dick was gone, and the pink dawn sky had faded into blue.

Wally sat in the field for a few minutes, knees drawn to his chest, staring at the spot where the portal had opened.

He pulled out his phone from his pj pockets. _Hrmm. Two hours time difference. Almost 9:30._

He punched a familiar number into his phone.

"... hello?" A groggy Robin picked up.

"Oh, sorry. I didn't mean to wake you."

"It's ok."

"I just …" - _wanted to make sure you were there -_ "... wanted to make sure you were ok."

"Yeah, I'm already home. It wasn't as bad as it looked."

"Oh. Do you think it might not scar?"

"Uhm … kind of a weird question. But it will, I guess," Robin snorted. "Since when are you worried about my porcelain skin?"

Wally ignored the sarcasm in his voice. "... See you Saturday?"

"Definitely." Wally could hear a grin creep into Robin's tone.

"Great. Get back to sleep."

"Mmhhmm. Bye."

Wally clicked the phone shut and sat until the sun came the rest of the way up. He stood and started home.

"I love you, too," he whispered at the void behind him.


	17. Part II: The Way Home Prologue

_Not over! Not even close. This is the story of the major events of five years inbetween 2011 and 2016. _

_I was pretty surprised that everyone thought it was over! But since many people felt a good sort of conclusion, I'm naming these sections **Part II: On The Way Home. **__I guess when we're done - for those of you who aren't interested in the way (**all three**!) timelines fit together, I'll have a tl;dr summary version of the ending that wraps things up._

_One quick note: I have the dates all decided, but if something comes up in the story that I didn't anticipate in my outline for whatever reason, I may have to kajigger them. It should be fine the way that it is. :)__ One thing I've changed is that the mission took place in the Yukon now, not Newfoundland (for inconsequential flight reasons)._

__I have to thank lyricalentropy, Zeraphie, and Val-Creative for their help and support. _As always, thanks so much for your reviews and kind words! __Also, I've written 99,207 words in all of my stories at the time of this publishing - this should take me to exactly 100,000 words since March (not counting Valentine's Day)! *confetti*_

__I'm really excited! _Let's get started with a short little prologue!_

**_Time travel is confusing, and that's ok! I'm spreading out the story so that you can see it in bits and pieces, so if things don't make sense now, hang on! If I explained it all at once, it would be even harder to understand._**

* * *

><p><strong><em>I'll Catch Up to You<em> Part II: The Way Home**

**Prologue**

Wally slipped through his open door in the pale morning light into his silent home. They'd left the kitchen light on; he flipped it off and let his hand wander down to the hole that Robin - Nightwing - had left in the wall just below it. He had to fix it before his parents got home that night … along with the tiles in the shower …

But he couldn't bring himself to do it now.

Exhausted, he pulled a Zestia out of the fridge - _mmm, strawberry was going to taste good in a few years - _wandered back upstairs, and flopped down face down on his bed. On Nightwing's pillow.

_I wonder how long it will smell like him?_

The paper Dick had given him was still in his hand; it was mostly blank except for the lottery numbers scrawled on the lower right corner. And a date: 4/10. Today. No year.

_The lotto would be announced tonight_.

Wally grinned and turned the paper over, holding it up to the light and running his thumb over it. He frowned. He felt little indentations in it, like someone had written on the sheet on top of this one on the pad but pressed hard. They were too slight to make out when he squinted, but that could be remedied.

Leaping to his desk, he grabbed a ruler and a pencil, and, holding down the paper with the rule to keep from smudging the pencil, he brushed the lead lightly over the surface. The indentations stood in white against the now grey background in Dick's careful, prep-school cursive. It wasn't the easiest thing to read but …

_Bart ~_

_Timeline:_  
><em>0408/2016 - Bludhaven (41° 11' N / 73° 7' W)_  
><em>Depart: 08:00:00<em>

_Killer Frost/The Light attack_  
><em>0408/2011 - Whitehorse, Yukon (60° 43' N / 135° 3' W)_  
><em>Arrive: 08:00:00 (? planned)<em>

_04/09/2011 - (coordinates set to holowatch GPS - planning Yukon at arrival site) _  
><em>Return: 18:00:00 (planned)<em>

_04/10/2011 - (coordinates set to holowatch GPS)_  
><em>Emergency Return (if no contact): 09:00:00<em>

Wally knitted his brow. More details, but nothing he didn't already know, more or less. He checked his phone: he'd called Robin at 07:26. Nightwing had left only minutes before.

Wally picked up the paper and held it up to see if he could pick out any markings underneath where Dick had written the lottery numbers but noth - -

He dropped it in surprise.

… and picked it up again.

And put it down.

On the desk, Dick's cursive was outlined in gray.

But whenever he touched it, it was written in _his _handwriting.

_Who the hell wrote the note on the sheet of paper above?_


	18. II: The World Is Lost and Blown TL 1

_Here we go! Thanks so everyone sticking with this. This is** Timeline #1 with Robin #1** - for those who haven't read the last couple chapters lately, our Nightwing that we know so well is **Robin/Nightwing #2**. His Wally, Wally #2, died in a running accident when he was 20. (Our Wally is Wally #3 - not dying. Hopefully ;).) No Robin has time traveled before Robin #1; he has to be the first._

_Don't get hung up on dates; they're there for those who are interested in details. :)_

_Thanks as always to by betas: lyricalentropy, zeraphie, val-creative!_

_In the **second** part of the chapter: **BOLD = an official report**, ITALICS = dream. Sorry, ff. net doesn't allow fancy fonts or formatting. I'm trying to compensate by dividing all the parts with lines; it would perfectly readable if I could use Courier like in the original Word document. :P_

* * *

><p><strong>Timeline #1 (Robin #1): July 15th, 2011 after the Yukon<strong>

**Gotham General Hospital, Gotham City**

Robin woke up three months later. The fluorescent lights on the sterile white ceiling were lit, even though bright afternoon sunlight fell over the hospital bed and blue wallpaper. His chest hurt. His everything hurt.

His hands trembled as he lifted them to his torso to inspect the source of the pain; giant white bandages wound around his ribs, containing the damage beneath them. His breath came in shallow, painful gasps as he impatiently he tugged at the thick white gauze until it tore away.

One angry red gash, straight and precise, extended from his collarbone to his abdomen just to the right side of his sternum. _Surgery?_ Sweat trickled down his temple as he struggled to a sitting position, tracing his thumb over the thick crimson scar. He couldn't remember why it was there.

A startled nurse noticed that he was awake and called for a doctor in the hallway.

Suddenly, the blood drained from his head, and Robin's arms gave out. Her blurry, dark shadow leaned over him, and he passed out again.

It was late in the evening the next time he opened his eyes. The room slowly came into focus; a large, colorful bouquet sat on the table across from him. This time, Robin didn't try to get up.

Bruce emerged silently from the shadows, like he always does. He got up from a sofa chair in the corner of the room, set the magazine he'd been reading beside it and padded to Robin's side.

"You're awake."

Robin nodded weakly. "… what happened?"

Bruce paused a long moment.

"What do you remember?" he asked softly, almost gently.

Robin paled. _This is bad._

"Not a lot ..."

Bruce waited patiently while Robin closed his eyes and tried to dig up the last thing he saw.

It was snowing, and the team was in a warehouse, fighting, but … _he_ was fighting Artemis.

_I attacked her_.

Robin swallowed thickly, and he couldn't come up with a reason. But he remembered that his head and neck had hurt. They were fighting Killer Frost and the Mad Hatter … _a mind control device?_

Aqualad told Artemis to shoot … something … and her arrow … he had stepped in front of it.

_Pain._

_Wally screaming._

_So much blood._

"Artemis shot … I got shot. With. An arrow."

"It missed your heart by centimeters," Bruce supplied. "Punctured your right lung."

"Good thing I brought the spare," Robin joked weakly.

Bruce didn't smile. "You're feeling better. That's good."

"… what happened?" Robin pressed. He started to cough, and his fist shook as he brought it to his mouth.

"I think you should rest some more, Dick."

"When can I see the team?" His breath came unevenly. He was their leader; they needed him as much as he needed them. But he needed them right now.

Bruce paused again. "Can you go back to sleep now? It's almost eleven."

"… Bruce …"

"We can talk about this in the morning, over breakfast."

Bruce ran his hand over Robin's brunette locks – a very unusual display of public affection - and headed toward the door. Robin's stomach tightened.

_Oh God. This is bad._

The man who was like a father slipped into the hall beyond the door frame.

"… Bruce," he murmured, too soft for the retreating shadow to hear, "what happened?"

A friendly nurse came in. "Mr. Wayne and the doctor requested that we up your dose of morphine tonight, Mr. Grayson." She smiled kindly at him as she adjusted the IV.

_This is _really_ bad._

* * *

><p><strong>Timeline #1 (Robin #1) - October 14th, 2011<strong>

**Batcave, Gotham City**

Three more months later, Robin still poured over the reports every night. Everyone's files dotted the giant computer screen haphazardly. He re-read Bruce's case file, in bold, heavy lettering, for the second time that evening:

* * *

><p><strong>Friday, April 08th, 2011 – The Matterhorn Ski Resort, Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada.<strong>

**At 012:00 hours on April 08th, Young Justice was dispatched to mines near the recently closed Matterhorn Ski Resort. Their mission: to investigate rumors of the development of a crystalline power source by The Light for an energy ray that could potentially breach The Watchtower's defenses.**

**Based on verbal reports from the team collected at 6:30 hours, between 12:30 and 13:15 the team encountered the Mad Hatter and Killer Frost in an altercation. Three teammates, Miss Martian, Superboy, and Robin were taken hostage for three hours and implanted with mind control devices.**

* * *

><p>It had been unbelievably unlucky.<p>

* * *

><p><strong>As the remaining members located the missing teammates and attempted rescue, the mind controlled individuals attacked them in a warehouse on the east side of the resort.<strong>

**At 16:47 hours, Aqualad radioed the Justice League for help because Robin had sustained a life threatening injury. Aqualad had ordered Artemis to shoot for the device on Superboy's neck because he would be the least likely to be injured in case the arrow missed its mark. The Kryptonian was restraining Kid Flash at the time. Artemis fired, but Robin stepped in front of the arrow and took it in the right side of his chest. He fell unconscious.**

* * *

><p>Sometimes, the events that occurred afterward would invade Robin's dreams, even though he never saw them himself. On his better days, he remembered them as he read, imagining that he knew his friends well enough that what he saw as he slept was accurate.<p>

* * *

><p>'<em>Artemis!' Aqualad calls in his smooth baritone, dodging a a piece of a ski lift Miss Martian threw at him. "Fire again!"<em>

_But Artemis, cool as ice, is already on top of it, while the little red boy collapses to the ground, his puppet strings cut._

* * *

><p><strong>Artemis fired a second shot at the device on Superboy's neck. It connected and dislodged the device. Free of the mind control, Superboy collapsed, allowing Kid Flash to escape his grasp. Kid Flash provided emergency medical care to Robin in the form of a chest compress<strong>.

* * *

><p>'<em>Don't pull out the arrow, idiot,' Artemis tells the speedster as he kneels next to Robin and cradles head in his hands, carefully undoing his cape.<em>

_Kid Flash – who hasn't done anything of the kind - glares angrily at the green archer. 'You think I don't _know_ that?' he hisses, folding up Robin's cape and using it to apply pressure to Robin's wound._

_As Robin lays on the ground, bleeding, _Wally always talks to him softl_y_, _telling him it will be alright, buddy, we got you, we got you. Sometimes in his dreams, just sometimes, Wally presses his own forehead to Robin's as he speaks - just hang in there, just hang in there – and Robin can feel warm, wet tears dot his temples._

* * *

><p><strong>Artemis and Aqualad continued to engage Miss Martian until she was also neutralized.<strong>

* * *

><p><em>As Miss Martian dodges three quick arrows in a row, Aqualad finally snipes her device with a water knife.<em>

* * *

><p><strong>Batman and the Flash responded with a medical evacuation by 17:14 from the Watchtower. Robin was flown to Gotham Central Hospital. Miss Martian and Superboy recovered without any apparent ill-effects.<strong>

* * *

><p>It's possible that Robin actually experienced all that he imagined up until this point, subconsciously. But his dreams never stopped there.<p>

* * *

><p><strong>The remaining members of the team insisted on completing the intelligence gathering mission, and because of a nuclear threat in Iran, the Justice League was unable to relieve the team entirely. Aqualad resumed his leadership role since Robin could not.<strong>

**At approximately 20:10 that evening, the team encountered Killer Frost in an abandoned mine shaft. Their whereabouts compromised, Killer Frost's crew ambushed them with an armed bomb.**

* * *

><p>It had been <em>impossibly<em> unlucky.

* * *

><p><strong>Kid Flash fled with the device at 20:20, taking it as far up the mountain as possible before it exploded. This caused a small avalanche.<strong>

* * *

><p><em>A small streak paints a pure-white snow field yellow and red. It is beautiful. The mountain to Wally's right, forest to his left, mine behind him, lodges in front of him. He turns up the mountain, running as fast as he can and tossing the bomb. A wave of white chases him back down.<em>

* * *

><p>I should have been there.<p>

* * *

><p><strong>An hour later the team intended to rendezvous near the lodge, but Kid Flash did not meet them there. His whereabouts remained unknown for the rest of the evening, despite an extensive search by the team focusing on the area of the avalanche until 22:30.<strong>

* * *

><p>'<em>I can't find him," Miss Martian calls to her three other friends as they plow through the piles of snow at the bottom of the mountain. She tries to establish a telepathic link again but shakes her head.<em>

'_Don't you see anything on the infrared, Superboy?' Aqualad asks._

_Superboy also shakes his head somberly._

_Aqualad hits his comm: 'Aqualad to the Justice League. Requesting assistance. Aqualad to Justice League.'_

'… _still nothing?' gripes Artemis._

_Aqualad sighs and shivers beneath his coat. _

* * *

><p><strong>The team was unable to contact the League again due to atmospheric interference generated by the completion of the doomsday crystal in the area.<strong>

**When it proved to be too dark to continue the search, and no communications were received, the remaining members of the team - Miss Martian, Artemis, Aqualad, and Superboy - snuck into a nearby lodge for shelter.**

* * *

><p>'<em>We can't just leave him out here,' Miss Martian frowns.<em>

_Aqualad looks at the snow and tries to raise the League for the tenth time that hour. Their automatic distress signal also beeps at regular intervals._

'_We can't help him if we freeze out here. We're of no use to anyone unless we are also healthy.'_

_Artemis and Superboy also stare at the snow. The sun set an hour ago, and there are no lights from the shut down lodges nearby. It's -2 degrees._

'_The distress signal will remain on through the night.'_

'_What about the Batplane?' asks Artemis._

'_We won't be able to use auto-navigation if the communications systems are shut down. We … we need Robin to fly it manually."_

_The decision to take the Batplane had been last minute, desperate, because the bio-ship was still too damaged from the previous mission. This mission was a perfect storm._

_Artemis looks around. 'That lodge looks break-into able' she says._

_They head toward the windows._

* * *

><p><strong>At approximately 07:45 hours on April the 09th, Killer Frost's team attacked the lodge. The team engaged the swarm of attackers, who numbered in the dozens and now successfully radioed the Justice League. Aquaman left as immediate reinforcement, followed later by The Flash and Green Lantern.<strong>

* * *

><p>These were the parts of the dreams Robin tried not to remember; the parts that he hoped he woke up before. Before these parts, he would wake up shaking, after them, he ...<p>

I should _have been there_.

* * *

><p><strong>At 08:10 hours, Killer Frost and the Mad Hatter charged the energy gun powered by the crystal on the lowest level and fired test shots at the lodge and team. The resulting blasts at 08:21 killed Miss Martian, Aqualad, and Aquaman. Superboy survived the attack due to his invulnerability. Artemis Crock went missing; she hasn't been seen or heard from since.<strong>

* * *

><p><em>The team fights valiantly outside the wooden lodge in the crisp air against a swarm of at least fifteen assailants. The tide turns, however, when another twenty attack from behind. The first blast hits Miss Martian; blinding white light punctuates the dream. The heat from the blast disables her immediately, and she dies in Superboy's arms minutes later. Superboy does not react well. He rages uncontrollably, cutting a haphazard swath through the field toward the gun. He takes a blast point blank at the lowest setting once he reaches the device; blinding white overwhelms the dreamscape again.<em>

_The last blast destroys Aquaman and Aqualad. The final flash of white._

* * *

><p>I should <em>have <strong>been<strong> there_.

* * *

><p><strong>The Flash and Green Lantern arrived on the scene at 09:02 hours, and engaged the last of Killer Frost and the Mad Hatter's team. The agents of The Light retreated and escaped with the crystal at 9:06 hours.<strong>

**Green Lantern revived Superboy, who suffered a concussion and severe burns from a point-blank blast from the gun. The members of the League recovered the bodies of Miss Martian, Aqualad, and Aquaman, with the assistance of Superboy.**

* * *

><p><em>What was left of them, <em>Robin thought bitterly.

* * *

><p><strong>Kid Flash's body was recovered by the Flash from the snow at 10:14 hours. Cause of death: starvation, suffocation, and hypothermia. Brain death occurred an estimated three hours after the avalanche, preventing recovery by meta-healing powers after another estimated five to six hours.<strong>

* * *

><p><em>The dream always ends with a snowstorm. Flash picks up Wally, lips tinged blue, right arm dangling outside of his mentor's hold. The red-clad speedster is crying as he turns his back on the dreamer, on Robin, and carries Wally's body away. Robin, can't move, can't call after them, can't run after them, and so he watches, helpless, until they are swallowed by the cold white.<em>

* * *

><p>He can wake up screaming, though.<p>

* * *

><p><em>I SHOULD HAVE <strong>BEEN<strong> THERE._

* * *

><p>Robin threw his mug of Alfred's tea against the nearby wall in the Batcave, narrowly missing the outermost console of the computer. It shattered on the wall, and the spot of tea dripped down the rough grey rocks.<p>

His com beeped, and he quickly shut down the files. They flickered away like stars winking out in the sky.

His comm beeped again, and he answered.

"What, Batgirl?" Robin snapped.

He frowned. He shouldn't take it out on Babs. "Sorry. Yes?"

"R, B wants you out on patrol. Something's going down at 18th and Center Street."

"Roger. R out."

Back into the fray. Back into the war zone that was Gotham City since The Light had used the energy crystal gun to destroy the Watchtower.

And half the League.

He walked over to collect the pieces of the cup before he leaves. Such a small, mundane act in the middle of the chaos.

It didn't matter that the arrow had missed his heart; that was the part that hurt the most. His heart always hurt the most.


	19. II: For Now We Stand Alone TL 1

_Author's Notes: Wow this baby is a monster. I wish I knew who the OP was so that I could thank them. :) _

_I do need to thank **zeraphie** and **val-creative** for all their help with this particular chapter, and lyricalentropy in general. AND OF COURSE **all of you** who kindly review and PM and **all that really supportive and encouraging jazz**. :) _

_At this point, any horrible, horrible violations of canon are no one's fault but my own. Also, the Mars bit is true, but I'm not 100% sure it would be visible at that time in Connecticut._

_We're continuing the **FIRST** timeline, finding out what happened before Robin traveled (the first time)._

* * *

><p><strong>Timeline #1 (Robin #1) - <strong>March 3rd, 2011<strong>**

**11 months after The Yukon Incident (**5 months after events of Chapter 18**)**

**The Frozen District, Gotham City**

* * *

><p>Dick perched on yet another blown out roof of yet another Gotham government building. Under the pressure of his smoke grey soles, marble shards from a dissolving gargoyle pattered to the streets below, dust disappearing on the breeze. The wind carried a bitter, rotten scent that he could never quite pin down: whatever it was, Gotham wallowed in it.<p>

These days, Gotham _gleefully _wallowed in it.

He'd rub his fingers red and raw in soapy water, but he could never quite get the stench out of his cape.

Barely audible strains of dance music and shouting reached his ears fifteen stories above the ground. He cocked his head; it wasn't the usual drunken babbling. A group of twenty-something thugs sounded like they were about to get into a fight.

_Awesome_.

Robin snickered and fired his grappling hook at a building adjacent to the scuffle. His comm beeped.

"Hey, Batgirl," Dick chirped. He was already enjoying the adrenaline rush from the fight to come.

"R, there's a drug deal gone sour at Club Ague in the Frozen District."

He laughed into the comm. "Already on it."

"No, R, wait for backup. We don't know how deep this goes yet."

"Pfft," Dick scoffed. "I can handle these jerks."

Since the Light had crippled the League, they'd divided the world among their members: some, like Ra's al Ghul, ruled their territories with an iron fist, enforcing a fascist sort of peace. Others, however, did not. Like the Penguin. While he himself wasn't fond of chaos, he found disorder conducive to his racketeering, gambling, and strip clubs. Fostering corruption throughout Gotham society and its government was quite lucrative.

Penguin had further sub-divided the city into districts for the major villains: Mad Hatter, Mr. Freeze, Two Face, Riddler, Poison Ivy. Most of them towed the line, working together in a tenuous treatise to run the city under the predictably ridiculous moniker of The Rookery. Joker, of course, overran districts whenever he could, flowing chaotically through the crime scene.

Gotham's only import and export now was chaos.

Robin tugged on his grappling gun, testing the connection. The grips ground into his calloused palms through his threadbare gloves. He'd never mention it to Bruce, though: Batman would insist on new gloves, but there were more important places to sink the remains of the Wayne fortune. When the established, stable economic structures had dissolved, and even Wayne Enterprises felt the hit from others' disorganized and dishonest business practices.

The wrist computer worked fine anyway.

The grappling connection held solid, and Robin surveyed the convoluted maze of alleys around the fight.

The Frozen District. Mr. Freeze was probably the most adept at maintaining order in his part of the city; the fact that a deal had gone sour here meant bigger trouble than elsewhere in the city. Dick hoped that it wasn't a sign of the Rook falling apart.

_Hopefully it's just the Joker._

Not a thought he'd have guessed he ever have.

Robin could only treat the symptoms, though, not the disease, because the disease spread far beyond Gotham. While the villains the world over had each other, it was every hero for themselves, for each of their homes, because there just weren't enough heroes to pick up the slack anymore. Almost everyone older than 16 who survived the Watchtower attack spread out and watched over a city.

His comm crackled again, impatience invading Barbara's tone. "Red's taking over for me, and Jay and I are on our way."

When it became obvious that the three of them - Bruce, Dick, Barbara - could just not be enough stem the rising tide, Bruce had recruited a couple of other kids, Tim Drake and Jason Todd, to fight the good fight. Red Robin and Bluejay.

_Always with the themes. _Trying to build a sense of solidarity that Dick didn't really feel these days.

They and Babs were a couple of years older than he was, and it irked him to no end that he was again the youngest but most experienced on a team. But Jason was bigger and stronger, and as much as he hated to admit it, Tim was the better hacker. And Babs "coordinated" - not him - because, well, Bruce was concerned with Dick's stability.

"Guess you guys can be on clean-up," Dick laughed, eerily and too lightly, into the comm. "Catch ya later!"

Because he did things like that.

He turned off his comm and swung into the fray.

* * *

><p>Twenty minutes later, Barbara and Jason arrived to an alley full of passed out and bound thugs. Dick had been perhaps a little liberal with the exploding batarangs - if the scorch marks on the wall were any indication - but he got the job done. Jason toed one of the crooks in the ribs, who wailed and whimpered under the pressure. Jason smirked.<p>

"Aww, did someone mess up your order for the BBQ rib special, sir?" He pretended to pout. "Guess we'll have to take that up with the manager."

Babs glared at her teammate as she tested the zip ties around everyone's wrists, stepping over puddles of unidentified muck and the occasional misplaced tooth. "Not funny. We might."

Crouching down, Jason pulled the greasy hair out of another crook's eyes and tapped on his forehead. "You mean Bats?"

The man's eyelids fluttered, showing the whites of his eyes. Babs bent over and shined a flashlight into them until his pupil rolled back down. Alive, but only barely conscious.

"He won't be happy these guys aren't in any condition to talk."

Jason grinned, bracing his hands on his red tights and squatted down next to her. He squeezed the cheeks of a fourth man, molding his lips into a little fish face, and snickered: "A little excessive force never hurt anyone, right?"

Batgirl rolled her eyes. "Also not funny. It's about control, and you know it."

"Because he thinks the little squirt's cracked in his gourd?"

"Don't you _dare_, Jay."

"I'm just sayin', _I'm_ cool with him, and frankly, he's more stable than 90% of the city," Jason stood up and gestured broadly, kicking a little rainwater onto their captives,"but if it bothers Bats so much, why not just bench him?"

"That could make it worse." An even tone cut into their conversation over their comm links. Tim. "Also, I should remind you he's on this frequency. I can't raise him, but he could be listening in. He knows how to hide his signal. He built the original comm links."

Babs gave Jason a withering glare. "Of course he can hear if he wants."

"What?" Jason held his hands out in a defensive shrug. "It's nothing I wouldn't say to his face. Like I said, _I'm_ fine with this sort of thing. These guys deserve this and a lot more ..."

"Great. All we need is _more _-"

"Look, snap dragon, I know better than do it _myself_. _I'm _not fourteen, and I can't hide behind a sob stor - "

"You shut your _mouth_." Babs was in his face now. "He'll always be ten times the Robin you will -"

Tim interrupted coolly. "Is there any sign of him, by the way?"

Babs shook her head as she wandered the perimeter of the scene. "Negative, Red. Or wait ..."

A bloody handprint on northeast corner of a granite building. Made by a hand much smaller than any of the criminals in the brawl had.

"He's headed northeast," Babs muttered. "Zeta beam at the zoo, probably."

Zeta beam was a dangerous form of travel these days; only a few secret beams were still in order for good-guy use. Even then, they were in deep disrepair and not properly shielded. The traceable energy burst from each trip potentially exposed heroes to watchful Light eyes. Dick wouldn't use it unless it was an emergency - or unless he wasn't really aware that he was taking it.

Jason spun his finger in a circle around his ear: "Cuckoo."

Babs growled, shooting at dirty look at Jason. "Do you detect any bursts in the one hidden under the zoo?"

"Yes." Tim sighed. "About fifteen minutes ago."

Jason whistled and gestured to the fifteen or so criminals beaten and tied up on the ground. "He did this in ten minutes?"

Tim sighed again. "Bad sign." Usually that sort of efficiency - _ruthlessness _- meant he wasn't all there.

Babs prayed he'd used the beam to get home to the one in the Batcave, since he was clearly injured. Her tone picked up a notch. "Do you know where he came out?"

Tim paused. "Happy Harbor."

_Not as bad as it could be._ The redhead breathed a sigh of relief. "Well, he's probably safe there."

She heard Tim tapping away at the other end of the comm.

"Batgirl." He hrrmed. "Today Mars is closer to Earth than it has been in almost 10 years."

* * *

><p>The sun had sunk behind the glittering blue sea about forty minutes ago. Robin dragged a chair to the edge of the ocean and collapsed into it, exhausted from a rigorous, fun swim with Aqualad: he had showed Robin the most efficient way to swim against a rip tide. Robin saw only his shadow above him as Aqualad patted Robin's head and told him to rest; he'd done a great job; he was going to be as good as some of his brothers under the sea one day. His baritone was hypnotic, beautiful.<p>

Robin grinned as he subtly traded his darkish swim goggles for his shades, stretching his arms above his head and melting into the brightly striped mesh beneath him. Miss Martian giggled just beyond his vision to his right and playfully tossed some of the golden sand she was using to bury Superboy at Robin's feet; the younger brunette snickered and gently tossed some back.

She was all smiles as she floated over and knelt down behind him, chatting softly in his ear.

"You know, I think the ocean is my favorite part of Happy Harbor. The oceans on Mars are so small. And never this blue. Of course, underground there's lots of water, more than here, but -"

A shout from across the beach interrupted her cheerful babbling: Wally.

"Ready!" he called. The scent of Wally's delicious burgers and hot dogs reached Robin's nose.

"Ohh!" Miss Martian cooed as she took off toward the BBQ. "Yum!"

She turned back to the lounging boy. "You'll have to try my latest batch of chocolate cookies! I think I got them right - I'd love to hear what you think."

Her voice was fading as she walked away, "Roy came with caramel ice cream, too!"

Robin hmmed contentedly.

Absolute silence. He tried to get up and join his friends, but he was just so ... tired. His leg hurt when he moved it, and he frowned as the sting in his thigh worsened. Had something bitten him in the ocean?

_No, Aqualad wouldn't have let that happen._

Suddenly, it was very dark and very cold. Wally's shadow was over him, green eyes glittering in the starlight. They wrinkled with concern, and he reached down to pat him gently on the cheek. His hand was so warm, impossibly warm, in the chill, and Robin just wanted to lean into it and fall asleep. But Wally wouldn't let him, he was babbling ...

"Robin, Robin," he said. "Wake up. You ... you're bleeding."

* * *

><p><em>No, not Wally.<em>

The voice was wrong, too high. Dick's eyes fluttered open, and he looked up into a pair of eyes almost the right shade of green, though. They were harder to make out in the pitch black of the night. The warmth faded into the cool touch of Batgirl's glove.

The edges of the broken chair, mostly buried in the sand, dug into his back as the tide licked at his feet and outstretched hand. A soft pink planet - _Mars was so beautiful_ - hung overhead, just past Babs' right ear. Dick groaned and rolled over onto his side, clutching his thigh.

"Hey, Babs," he muttered, a false lightness invading his tone.

"Don't roll over, Dick," she said, gently wiping dark strands of his bangs from his eyes. "You'll get sand in that gash. You're soaking wet."

He was. _Maybe I was practicing how to swim against rip tide_, he thought bitterly.

"Where am I?" he asked, even though he could guess, and guess correctly.

Batgirl sighed. "Happy Harbor."

"It happened again." The blackouts. Usually he just came to in random, dangerous parts of Gotham, bleeding and broken with no explanation for his wounds or what he'd been doing. But lately he'd been travelling.

"Yeah." Barbara pulled out a small first aid kit and a small pair of scissors. The sliver blades glinted as they sawed through his pants, revealing a nasty but shallow slice running the length of the red on his chaps. He pulled at the tatters of his tights.

"Ugh, these are going to need serious patching," he said ruefully, apologetically.

Babs snorted as she fished out some disinfectant and gauze. "They're not the _only _thing that needs patching, kid."

She paused, worried that she sounded condescending.

Dick stared at the sand a moment longer. "Don't call me that."

Babs' hand holding the disinfectant soaked cloth stopped just over his wound. She caught his chin with her free hand and smiled. "Yeah, you're not one, huh? Fifteen in a couple of weeks. Catching up to me."

Dick just looked at her.

"... what I meant was, uhm, you're lucky you don't need stitches," she amended lamely. The brunette hissed as she ran the gauze over the gash.

The sixteen-year-old reached back into her belt, pulling out a bottle of solution. "Here, you have some blood at your temples. We should check that out."

"Hmm," Dick murmured absentmindedly. He couldn't help but lean into the soft leather of her gloves as she held his face and sprayed his eyes. Her hands were small but firm, and as he closed his eyes, he let them slide past her face to the crimson hair flowing out of her cowl and down her shoulders .

She coated his mask liberally, so that the glue wouldn't pull if he'd been hurt under it, and the excess dripped over and down his cheeks. Her fingers slipped under the edges of the black molded leather, gently tugging it away from his face. A gloved thumb ran against the grain of his eyebrows, wiping away the last remnants of the glue. Her touch was familiar; it was _familial_, and she knew him better than anyone else these days … better than anyone else left.

When his eyes opened, her emerald irises stared straight into his crystal blue ones. The wry twist tugging at her pink lips faded.

His eyes. Fourteen-year-old eyes going on fifteen. Going on forty.

"You have to be more careful, Dick," she whispered, her breath ghosting over his temples as she inspected the blood on his face. It washed away clean; it wasn't his.

"Or you'll wind up getting …"

"- killed?" he laughed dryly. "Or killing someone?"

She pulled back with a concerned little frown. _Yes_, she didn't say. It was a line no one should have to cross, not at fourteen. Not at fifteen. Not at forty.

He stared back quietly. _I feel like I already have_, he didn't say.

But she still heard him, and that was why she ran her fingers over the edge of his ear, tucking wet, black locks behind it, and met him halfway when he leaned in for a kiss.


	20. II: Relive The Pictures TL 1

_**Author's Notes**: Wow this baby is a monster. I wish I knew who the OP was so that I could thank them. :)_

_I need to thank **val-creative** and **realizations** for all their help with this particular chapter, **zeraphie** for her support, and, of course **lyricalentropy** for every scrap of canon I know. At this point, any horrible, horrible violations of canon are no one's fault but my own._

_Timeline 1 is hard to write for a couple of reasons, and so **ALL YOUR AMAZING SUPPORT AND ENCOURAGEMENT** has been enormously appreciated. I can't even believe it. I particularly love it when people ask about the time-travel mechanics, and even though I can't answer everything, I WILL GET BACK to all my recent reviews. Real life has slowed down a bit now that I've moved, and I will be better about that. _

_I've also been making a playlist for the story, with songs that have relevant lyrics or just fit the tone - would anyone be interested in seeing that? It's NBD. _

_ALSO, **asterbox **at tumblr has been kind enough to draw an AMAZING picture of Robin in the first chapter of the timeline. You can see it here: ht t p : / / bit .ly / niOGBf_

_Follow this incredible girl if you have a tumblr account! _

_We're continuing the **FIRST** timeline, finding out what happened before Robin traveled (the first time)._

_**Final Note**: I've decided that I need to shave a year off the time before Nightwing time-traveled to keep the story moving faster. So he traveled when he was **18, not 19**, four years after they all fought in the Yukon and he visited Wally. Makes my inner age-squick happier anyway, since Wally was 16 and now Nightwing was 18. :) _

* * *

><p><strong>Timeline #1 (Robin #1) - <strong>March 3rd, 2011<br>******Wayne Manor, Gotham City**

"You're grounded," Bruce informed Dick, as Alfred tended to the acrobat's leg in the chill of the Batcave. He didn't even turn away from the computer console.

Dick opened his mouth to protest, but Bruce raised a hand and spun toward his four young proteges gathered at the bottom of the rock staircase. The wounded Robin balanced on the edge of a metal gurney, bare legs dangling over the side. He'd shed the mask, cape, and lower half of his uniform, trading the damaged tights for some old shorts he could toss later. Alfred, shirt sleeves rolled past his elbows, hovered over the gash in his thigh with medical thread and a needle in hand. The smell of hydrogen peroxide permeated the cave.

Beside Robin, Babs thoughtfully regarded the scuffed toe of her black boot, pursing her lips into a frown, while Jason, bored and itching to patrol the morning hours, subtly bounced back and forth on his heels. Tim _hmmed_ lightly.

"No question." Bruce's face was tight, eyes narrowed, and Dick's knuckles blanched white in pain and frustration as he gripped the bars on the side of the gurney.

"These blackouts compromise your safety as well as the safety of the whole team, and, to a certain extent, the entire League," Batman continued gruffly, referring to the possible security breaches in the Zeta beams. "Until we better understand your condition, you 're not to leave the manor."

"_What? At all?_" Dick exhaled sharply. The angry glare at Bruce dissolved into a wince and a hiss, though, as Alfred carefully made a particularly painful stitch across the gash in his thigh. Tim and Babs shifted just slightly towards the wounded boy in sympathy.

"What about school? I'll go _crazy_ cooped up in here," grumbled Dick. His healthy leg began to swing back and forth, already straining from sitting still so long.

Jason snorted a short laugh. "Done and do-" but he cut off as Babs glared at him, covering the tasteless joke with a fake cough.

Bruce stared at Dick intently. "You can continue your education here. Alfred will see that you get all the support you need."

Dick leaned back and covered his face with his hands in frustration. "_Augh_."

"Master Richard, please hold still." Alfred carefully re-threaded the needle.

To get it out of his system, the brunette squirmed the last few seconds he had before Alfred took to his leg again. "This is _ridiculous_. I can't - "

"How about if I keep an eye on him?" Babs interrupted. She caught Bruce's eye somberly; the scowling man templed his hands in front to his jaw to consider her offer.

Dick wrinkled his nose in distaste. "I don't need a baby sitt-"

"Dick, be reasonable," Babs snapped. "You know that's not what I mean."

"To be fair," interjected Tim from the far side of Jason. "I'm concerned that house arres - er, grounding - might make his … condition worse. I think Babs has a good idea: maybe Dick could leave as long as he has company?"

"... _and a leash?_" the acrobat sneered. Jason giggled behind his hand.

"_Dick_." Babs' green eyes pleaded with him.

Bruce sighed again and turned back to the large computer. The glow of shifting maps, incoming information from other heroes blinked across his face. The light revealed the shadows and lines that now crossed the man's face, a deeper frown, a harder edge to his jaw. He aged more in the last 11 months than he had in the four years before that put together: the years since Dick had first entered his care.

Those that knew him well would recognize how much it pained him to cage Dick. Unfortunately, the most important of those people was too irritated and frustrated - _and maybe sick_ - to notice.

"Alright," he finally agreed. "Batgirl can keep a close eye on him at school. But no missions or patrol."

Dick scowled.

"For at least six weeks."

_Six weeks_. Mid-April. Conveniently right after the anniversary of the "incident," as everyone called it these days. It was the "small i" incident, though. The attack on the Watchtower was the "big I" incident, and everyone could somehow tell the difference when they were brought up. Which was rarely, these days.

"Fine. School only," Dick hesitantly agreed.

Babs beamed and patted Dick on the shoulder. He unconsciously leaned into her touch, but she cleared her throat and pulled her hand away. Dick flushed and regarded his bare feet intently, frowning for the third time in as many minutes.

* * *

><p><strong>Timeline #1 (Robin #1) - <strong>March 18rd, 2011<br>******The Ivy District, Gotham City**

Two weeks later, Dick was exactly where he wasn't supposed to be.

The acrobat crouched on the edge of a filigreed concrete roof, casually munching on a taco he'd swiped from the cafe at school. It had been a few hours since lunch period, and the tortilla was a little soggy, but the carnitas was still delicious.

_Apple juice isn't bad, either._ The juice box crackled and collapsed as he absent-mindedly sucked away the last of it and then polished off the taco. He scanned the area below the building idly.

_Ah hah_. Dick grinned, carefully tucking his wrapper away. His cape fluttered behind him as he grappled down to the a ledge half-way down the structure. Stepping carefully, one in front of the other, he stalked his prey along the narrow pathway.

"There we go," he said, narrowing his eyes.

Positioning his hands carefully in front of him, he ... tossed his juice box with precision at the trash can directly below him on the street. It bounced off the side and fell into the metal receptacle.

"Hole in one," he chuckled and fell back on his laurels.

Dick was bored out of his mind.

Even in the worst sections of Gotham, crimes rarely went down at 3:00 pm.

_Crap, wrong_. 3:**10**.

His alarm on his glove beeped impatiently at him, and he scrambled to get his grappling gun out again. School would let out in 20 minutes, and he was supposed to be _there_. Babs would be waiting for him just outside his last period class to bring him home.

_Crap, crap, crap_. He rushed to the edge of the building and took a flying leap: it would be a close call getting back on time.

* * *

><p><strong>Timeline #1 (Robin #1) - <strong>March 18rd, 2011<br>******Gotham Academy, Gotham City**

Twenty-seven minutes later, Dick was still straightening his tie as he sprinted towards his English classroom on the second floor, cape and tunic stuffed carelessly into his backpack. A diminutive redhead leaned against the door frame and tapped her foot impatiently.

"I -" he panted, cheeks flushed red, eyes shining. "Sorry, Babs. I, uh … snuck out to go to the bathroom."

"Hmph," Babs turned away sharply and headed down the hall, the heels of her flats clicking angrily into the floor. Dick fell into step next to her, still catching his breath and grinning brightly.

Babs glanced at him sideways as they hit the exit. "Good day at school today, huh?" she said.

"Huh? Uhm, yeah. It was. _Man_, Mr. Highler really piled on the history homework, though. I'm getting tired of the French Revolution."

Babs' face tightened. "Dick, your history class was _cancelled_. There was a gas leak in the admin building at one, and we sat in the _gym_ for an hour. No wonder I couldn't find you. I should have snuck away from my designated safety group, but I _trusted_ - emphasis on the past tense - you."

Dick's mouth fell open. "I -"

"What were you doing? Did you just have lunch with me and leave?" Babs snapped. Her voice dropped to a dangerous whisper. "Were you going on _patrol_? Do you really think Bruce won't figure you _out_? I'm sure there are tracers -"

Dick waved his hands. "I have an interferenc -"

"I don't care," Babs said, crossing her arms and giving him a cutting gaze. The acrobat's mouth fell open, but he just stared back soundlessly.

Eventually, Babs' eyes fell to her feet and she regarded the the ground sadly. "You look … you look way too happy to have been stuck in school all day. He'll notice."

She shook her head, red hair catching the sunlight as it swung over her shoulder, and walked off, still frowning at the floor. The patter of Dick's feet echoed through the emptying hallway as he jogged after her.

"Babs, wait," he said. "I'm - I'm sorry. But I've been okay! I haven't blacked out since the beach! I can handle it."

Babs didn't stop. "How long, Grayson?"

"How long what? Two weeks, right?"

"No. How long have you been pulling _this_?"

Dick wrinkled his nose and shrugged contritely. The shoulders of his too-small school jacket pinched. "I dunno. A couple of days."

She glanced just over her shoulder at him, angry little gold flecks sparking in a sea of green. Dick shook off a feeling of déjà vu, and his own sapphire eyes widened innocently. "I mean it!"

The older girl's pink lips pursed. "Great, I'm not a total idiot. Thanks. I thought we were friends, Dick."

Dick swallowed. "Yeah, friends," he echoed lamely. It had been three weeks since they had kissed; neither had breathed a word about it. Besides, Dick didn't have the energy - _the heart_ - the time for … attachments, anyway.

"Are you going to tell Bruce?" he asked softly.

Babs snorted. "No." Her fingers left little red imprints where she pressed them to her temples. "... but consider it your birthday present, squirt. I guess I don't like looking incompetent anyway."

Babs ruffled his hair affectionately.

"Hmmm," Dick replied.

"Anyway, I'm not really mad, okay? In fact, it's maybe good. You won't have to fake being happy today."

"Why would I have to fake -"

A small, smug smile played across Babs' full lips. "Let's get you home and clean you up."

* * *

><p><strong>Timeline #1 (Robin #1) - <strong>March 18rd, 2011<br>******Wayne Manor, Gotham City**

The surprise party shouldn't have been a surprise, all things considered. His birthday wasn't until Monday technically, but it was Friday, and the heroes who still bothered to hold day jobs or go to school wouldn't have been able to make it until the following weekend.

For a Wayne party, it was a very small affair, and everyone showed up in civvies. Among the trusted few who came, keeping identities secret from each other after the Incident only added another layer of complications and opportunities for miscommunication. They were all friends now. They were all they had left.

Dick smiled and waved and hugged and essentially donned his Dick Grayson mask, but everyone who was there was also a reminder of someone who wasn't. The ones who couldn't be there if they wanted to.

Garth was there, but not Aquaman or Aqualad. J'onn was there. A recently recruited teen from Themyscria, Donna Troy, was there, but not Wonder Woman.

John Stewart clapped him on the back and gave him a smile; his eyes glowed a little green with the power of the lantern ring. But Hal didn't stroll up from behind to join him.

Roy was there, but not Ollie. Artemis was still nowhere to be found, even after an exhaustive search of the Yukon and months of surveillance on her mother's apartment. Rumors that she had been a traitor, a mole, circulated through the superhero community, but no conclusive evidence surfaced, despite her parents' dubious pasts.

Dick clung to the hope that she wouldn't betray them. She certainly hadn't _intended_ to shoot him; he'd stepped in front of that arrow.

Superman was there, but not Superboy.

The Incident happened during Superboy's first special visit to the Watchtower. He'd done more than prove himself as a hero since the Yukon, and Superman escorted Conner there himself. Dick heard that Superboy had just reached the bridge when the attack occurred. When the Light breached Watchtower defences with the Crystalline Ray, it destroyed most of the Watchtower and half the crew with the first shot.

Everyone who survived the first blast - including Conner - had defended the Tower valiantly against Light troops ransacking what was left. But it wasn't enough, nothing was ever enough these days. Now Superboy and countless others lay overhead, formally and reverently entombed in the last of the Tower, circling the Earth in a bright spark of light.

Then two months later Dick had awakened, after all the memorials and funerals and fanfare, after it was all over.

Barry was here, too.

And now Dick stood here, politely sipping his punch and passing out Alfred's Devil's Food cupcakes topped with rich red icing, pretending that things were or okay, or at least had gotten better.

_Any day that no one dies is a good day._ The bar for happiness had been somewhat lowered.

The perfunctory songs were sung, the small presents handed over. Everyone's too-big smiles and too-tight hugs were forced out as they bid their good byes. More exhausted than after hours of patrol, Dick finally crashed on one end of an enormous Wayne couch, slowly swirling the red punch around his crystal glass, watching the ripples catch the lamp light.

"Is it okay if I sit here?"

Barry smiled gently at Dick, hands casually tucked into the pockets of his chinos.

"Of course," Dick chirped, but his throat went dry.

"Just came to say goodnight, kiddo, and that we miss you down in Central," Barry said as he flopped down next to the birthday boy. He patted his knee.

Dick nodded and smiled weakly, but he couldn't muster a coherent response. Because what Barry didn't say was that they missed him last January, last January 15th, when everyone gathered to celebrate Wally's birthday. Even Babs had gone, though she'd only met Wally once or twice.

Dick had not.

He'd vanished into Gotham - _don't think, just fight_ - fighting his way through the Penguin's section of town; he broken his record with 24 crooks zip-tied at the end of the night. Or rather, by 5:30 in the morning when he collapsed into his bed bruised, but not broken._ Don't think, don't think_.

"Hey," Barry interrupted Dick's reverie. "I want you to know that you're welcome there any time, and if you ever need anything," Barry leaned over to catch Dick's downcast eyes with his own bright blue ones, "... anything at all, I'll be there, okay?"

"Of course," Dick said again.

Barry smiled and gave Dick a short squeeze before getting up and taking off. "You take care, ok, birthday boy? Don't …" Barry's soft baritone wavered a little, "... _no one_ wants you to get hurt, alright?"

It was _so_ like the Flashes to celebrate Wally's birthday instead of his death. It was _so_ like the Flashes to hold the party for _him_, for Dick, because he'd missed the funeral.

And these days, it was so like Dick to not show up.

He hadn't even had to good graces to be blacked out somewhere.

* * *

><p><strong>Central City, Kansas<strong>  
><strong>The West's House <strong>

Wally absentmindedly brushed more snow away from behind him on his roof, before leaning back on his elbows and letting his head fall behind him to look up at the crystal clear sky in Central. Dick had already cleared a space beside him a while ago, and he lounged on his back, hands folded behind his head. A grin stretched lazily across his face, and he lifted a shoe in the direction of a cluster of four stars overhead.

"What about those stars?" he asked Wally. It felt like weeks since he'd hung out with the speedster, and he was loving every second of the long evening of video games and now the ten minutes or so of star watching.

Wally munched thoughtfully on … something. Dick couldn't remember what it was.

"Hmmm." Dick strained his head to see what Wally was eating, but it was too dark. Wally noticed, though: "You hungry? I can get you one from inside."

The brunette shook his head vehemently. "No, no. I'm fine."

_Don't go_, a small voice insisted. "Tell me about the stars."

"Those? Oh, you'll like this. They're not a constellation. They're an _asterism_," the redhead drawled. "They're just _part_ of a constellation. Uhm, that one's like … Lozenge, the diamond, or something."

Wally slurped softly on whatever he was eating. "Hmm, it's got four stars - one's a binary, Kuma, er uh, Nu Draconis, or something. Don't remember for sure. Anyway, it's part of the constellation Draco, the dragon. He's got a lot of myths, like guarding Hercules' golden apples of immortality, but, _dude_, guess what?"

Knitting his brows, Dick interrupted as Wally slurped again. "Is that a popsicle?" he snorted. "What's the matter with you? It's like 25 degrees out."

Wally just laughed around the frozen snack. It started to snow again, lightly, and the popsicle slid out out of the redhead's mouth with a pop.

"Aw crap," Wally complained.

"I'm okay with staying out here," Dick grinned, sticking out his tongue to catch some of the falling crystals.

_Don't go._

"Isn't it getting a little cold for you, Dick? We've been out here a while."

"For me? What about you?"

The speedster chuckled. "I burn plenty warm for this weather."

Dick laughed and scooted closer to his friend. "So you get to be my personal heater. Problem solved."

_Don't go._

"Pfft, too hot for you," Wally grinned, but he rolled on his side, facing the shorter boy, and looped an arm over Dick's torso, resting his hand on his left rib cage.

"You wish," The acrobat snickered and turned back to the sky. "Anyway, you were saying? Draco?"

"Yeah. Get this. Remember that thing Aqualad was saying about CADMUS? How they made life from dragon's teeth? _That's_ the dragon," Wally said. His hair tickled Dick's ear as he stretched one arm above him and lay his face down next to Robin's.

"Huh. Like CADMUS was making the G-nomes."

"Yeah, kinda. See, this guy, Cadmus, he had to get to this spring that Draco guarded. Cadmus killed him and made himself some warriors by throwing the dragon's teeth in the ground."

Dick snorted. "Draco was just doing his job, wasn't he?"

"Sure," Wally paused, grinning. He tapped his warm fingers on Dick's left ribs idly.

Dick hissed. "Ow, dude, careful. That hurts."

"Sowwy," Wally said, mouth full of popsicle. "Anyway, it didn't work out for Cadmus. The God of War loved the dragon, got mad, screwed Cadmus' life, and eventually Cadmus turned into a lizard himself. You know. Greek tragedy."

"Good for us, am I right?" Dick laughed, a full, lilting laugh. "Speaking of Cadmus, do you think we'll get another mission this -"

"Hey," Wally interrupted him and leaned closer to the side of Dick's head. "Are you sure it's not too cold out here for you? Maybe you should go inside."

Wally's breath was chilly on his cheek, probably from the popsicle.

Dick frowned, "No, I'm totally fin -"

Wally ignored him again: "Are you sure it's not too cold for you, Dick?"

His cold lips brushed the ridge of Dick's ear, but Wally's hand was suddenly too hot on Dick's other side.

_Don't you dare go_.

"I _said_," Dick insisted impatiently, "don't worry about me – why is your hand so hot?"

"Dick, I think it's too cold -"

"Stop _saying_ that," the brunette snapped and pushed at Wally's red hot palm, "and don't _burn_ me, idio-"

His hand slid right through Wally's fingers, like he wasn't even there, and Dick's eyes snapped open as he started to slip off the roof.

"Dammi -" The acrobat popped up to a sitting position, catching himself on the gutter before he spilled over the edge.

He sat alone in the snow on Wally West's roof in Central City. He couldn't remember how he got here.

_Dammit_, indeed.

A tree branch, covered in bright green leaves edged with frost tickled the right side of his face, and his left side still burned: blood leaked from a nasty puncture wound there, pooling into the white snow beneath him. Dick shivered, drawing his cape more tightly around himself and pressing against the wound he didn't remember getting.

_And wasn't it spring? Why was it snowing?_

_Right._ The Light had handed Central over to Captain Cold and Weather Wizard. Dick shook off the sprinkling of snow that dotted his black gloves and pushed away the branch covered with flash-frozen spring leaves that had been brushing the side of his head.

It was April 8th.

Just a couple of days before Dick would be allowed to go on missions again.

_Somehow, that seems unlikely now._

Dick grimaced and shimmied down the familiar tree one-handed, holding his cape to his side to staunch the blood flow. He could navigate this tree with his eyes closed, and his feet easily found the well worn footholds he and Wally had rubbed into the branches. Half-way down the trunk, though, he paused, panting. Right in front of Wally's window.

Almost automatically –_ how many times had he snuck in here to change from his costume into civvies before seeing Wally's parents?_ – he climbed through the ledge, padding over the light blue carpet.

Wally's room was so clean it was almost criminal. All of his belongings - the TV, video games, school books, Star Trek posters - everything had been taken away; a fluffy, bland, beige comforter replaced Wally's soft, worn blue and yellow quilt on his twin-sized bed.

But a dozen or so pictures remained, spread neatly across his desk and nightstand. Wally graduating from kindergarten; accepting some kind of science award in 6th grade with a mouth full of braces; dressing up as the Flash for Halloween in 7th … and then "dressing up" as Kid Flash in 8th. Robin "dressed up" that year himself with Wally. It was the first and last time he ever went trick-or-treating. Or, rather, "troll-or-treating."

Robin smiled slightly, running a gloved finger over the tops of the pictures. Not a speck of dust on them.

Wally in various group photos: school, the team in civvies, and one ... just the two of them. Wally's had thrown his arm over Dick's shoulder at a picnic at Happy Harbor, bending down and playfully pressing their temples together. He grinned so widely his eyes were almost closed. Dick, in his hoodie, smirked at the camera, eyes hidden behind sunglasses.

Impulsively, unthinkingly, Robin slid the picture out of the frame and into his belt and slipped out the window.

It was April 8th.

And it was _so_ like a Bat to show up here the day Wally died.


	21. BONUS: Excelsheet and Playlist NOT Chap

Hi everyone! There's not an update today, (soon! soon!) but I thought that I'd share my Excel spreadsheet with you guys!

Here is everything that you've seen so far. I also posted a tiny version of the whole thing (through the end) on my tumblr. :)

ht tp : / / i56. tinypic. c om/ 2luavl 3. gi f

Whole thing: ht tp : / / 26. media. tumb lr. c om/t umblr _lqsth0APoo1qzn4dyo1_ 500. g if

* * *

><p><strong>PLEASE DON'T REVIEW THIS <strong>- I'd feel like a jackass for getting reviews on non-content

**PM ME IF YOU WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT. :) More than happy to. Still catching up on review replies!**

* * *

><p><strong>Playlist - some of these are songs that I don't even like that much, but the lyrics or tone is so appropriate I've included them - because you guys might like them, right? :)<strong>

**(MOSTLY Timeline #1 rn, so kind of depressing):**

Clocks - Coldplay

Right Where You Want Me (Radio Edit Version) - Jesse McCartney

The Firebird (L'oiseau de feu): 5. Infernal Dance of King Kaschei - Myung-Whun Chung & Orchestre de l'Opéra CityTonight

Tonight - Smashing Pumpkins

Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again - Original London Cast

Loves Me Not - t.A.t.u.

Falling Away With You - Muse

Riders on the Storm - The Doors

Breathe In - Frou Frou

Let Go - Frou Frou

Gravity (Wolf's Rain ED) - Maaya Sakamoto

Beautiful Soul - Jesse McCartney

If I Loved You - Amel Larrieux

On The Way Home - Buffalo Springfield

Getting To Know You - The King and I

The Ballad of Barry Allen - Jim's Big Ego

If I Were a Bell - Amel Larrieux

Everytime - Britney Spears

Map of the Problematique - Muse

アイデンティティ - Shena Ringo

The Beginning Is the End Is the Beginning - Smashing Pumpkins

Endlessly - Muse

Meteor Shower - Owl City

A Death Waltz - Jay Brannan

Neon Genesis Evangelion Opening - Yoko Kanno

Invincible - Muse

We're Flying - Yoko Kanno

New - No Doubt

Your Ex-Lover Is Dead - Stars

The Light Before We Land - The Delgados

Goodnight and Go - Imogen Heap

I Dreamed a Dream - Susan Boyle

Butterflies and Hurricanes - Muse

F**kin' Perfect - P!nk

Try Your Wings - Amel Larrieux

Return - Ok Go

Thoughts of a Dying Atheist- Muse

Woke From Dreaming - The Delgados

Kuki - Shiina Ringo

Do What You Want - Ok Go

Speed of Sound - Coldplay

Shortly Before the End - Ok Go

A Drop Filled With Memories - Susumu Hirasawa

According to You - Orianthi

The Harold Song - Ke$ha

Chasing Cars - Snow Patrol

Welcome to the Black Parade - My Chemical Romance

Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It) - Beyoncé

Days Like This Help Me Warm - The Polyphonic Spree


	22. Part II: Of Recoil

**The Story So Far:** Nightwing went back in time to save the team from danger during a Yukon mission in April of 2011 to confiscate an energy crystal that could power a dangerous ray gun.

He witnessed "himself" help the when he was Robin several years before. However, although Nightwing did his best to recreate the circumstances of the mission when he was there, things did not go as planned. After the mission ended, he decided to go visit to Wally. During his visit, he inadvertently revealed his identity and the fact that he's a time traveller.

He also discusses some of the theories he has about how the time travel may work, and suggests that there are actually multiple time lines created when anyone time travels. He suspects that there was at least one timeline that occurred before his timeline as Robin, since there would need to be a reason for the Nightwing he saw to travel back in time. He thinks that things must have been really bad in this timeline to justify something as dangerous and extreme as time travel.

He also reveals one other sliver of the future: he and Wally are together, and Wally dies.

Hoping not to change or mess up the timeline any more, he doesn't divulge any more concrete information. He returns to the future - which may or may not exist, since he's changed the past.

Once he steps into the light of the time travelling portal, the story recounts that first "really bad" timeline - Timeline #1.

In Timeline #1, all of the team was killed during the Yukon mission except for Dick, and the Light later used the energy crystal to destroy The Watchtower and kill half the League. In a world robbed of half its heroes, members of the Light have divided and conquered the Earth, and chaos reigns - particularly in Gotham. Since the mission, Dick has become increasingly unstable, suffering blackouts under stress in which he hallucinates that his friends are still alive.

In the last chapter, Dick woke up on the roof of Wally West's house on the anniversary of Wally and the team's deaths. He had a horrible wound in his side, but on his way home, he slipped into Wally's room and took a picture of he and his best friend.

* * *

><p><strong>Timeline #1 (Robin #1)<strong>

**April 14th, 2011**

**Gotham City, CT**

**Batcave **

"Barry called. He said you can keep the picture, Dick."

Tim tapped idly away at the console, the green and red lights of livefeeds from Gotham's street cameras flickering over his calm expression.

"... what picture?"

Dick froze mid-stretch in the shadows of the Batcave. The plush mats beneath him felt cold on his bare feet, and when he shivered, he winced, cradling his heavily bandaged torso. It had been almost a week since he'd stumbled back through the Batcave's Zeta Beam from Central City, and he'd woken up only a day or two ago.

Tim exhaled a short, soft breath - almost a laugh. "He's a forensic scientist, Robin -"

"Yeah," snickered Jason. The taller hero huffed loudly as he landed a particularly strong hit on the punching bag. "Next time you visit your little boyfriend's house, you probably shouldn't leave DNA all over the carpet."

Dick popped up from a forward bend and squeaked in surprise. This was the first he'd heard of _that_. Not that he'd been doing a lot of hearing passed out in the infirmary for days.

The rumble of the grandfather clock at the cave entrance. Babs swept down the stairs. Her heels clicked across the floor impatiently, cape blossoming behind her.

"Oh, don't worry," she said, tone edged with paused in front of the young acrobat - back toward him for just a second - and snapped around to face him, hips cocked, arms crossed over her chest. Her eye twitch a little in annoyance, but her expression remained flat. "They got the blood out of the carpet. It was only a couple of drops. Pretty impressive, really."

Her stony expression slid off her face, replaced by barely contained anger.

"Considering you were nursing a _gunshot wound_," she bit out before stalking off and fussing with papers aimlessly at Tim's side.

Red Robin gently smacked her hand away. "Those are important, Batgirl."

Dick sighed and collapsed backwards, black hair spreading over the mat, calves folded against his thighs up by his hips; arms by his head. Grinding the palms of his hands into his temples in frustration, the brunette tried to defend himself: "Look, I'm passed out; I _don't know_ I'm doing it. What am I _supposed _to do?"

"That's right." Bruce's commanding tone echoed through the cavern. "You don't. And you're not going to do anything from now on until you do."

"But ..." Dick winced as sat back up too quickly again, eyes wide with disappointment as his mentor's shadow fell over him.

"Dick. We've had this conversation before. I'm not having it again." Bruce pulled off his cowl and leaned down toward him. "I may not have the _luxury _of having this conversation again. Understood?"

Dick groaned as he dropped his head to his chest. "But this happened on a _weekend_! I was already here!"

"Tim's tightening security."

"School...?" he asked, hopefully.

Bruce cocked an eyebrow at Babs. The redhead didn't turn around; she stared nervously at the console in front of her, like she hoped something would pop up onto the screen to save her.

"No," she whispered. Bruce didn't even nod; it was clear he had known Babs' answer before.

"But this happened _here_!" The acrobat tried to stem the rising tide of nausea and panic threatening to overtake him. "I'll just get out -"

"We're _all _tightening security. If anything, if you get out - you'll make an excellent security consultant." A wisp of a smile - maybe even a little pride? - played at the corners of Bruce's mouth. "Regardless, Red Robin will replace you in the field, and you'll take over tactical duties. Understood?"

Dick's face fell. "Yessir."

"Good." He turned to the other three birds: "Patrol in ten minutes. Dick, you helm communications and info."

Jason and Tim filed upstairs to suit up; Bruce headed toward the Batmobile. Babs lagged behind, watching the lithe fifteen year old drag himself to the giant chair and plop down on it sideways, pouting up a storm.

"Dick," she began.

"... there's nothing to say, Batgirl."

"I'm _really_ sorry. He just asked if I thought you could be safe at school and ...

"Yeah, I get it."

"You'll be _safer_ here."

Dick logged into the computer, spinning away from her just enough that the back of the chair hid him from her view. Babs crossed her arms and shifted nervously, chewing a little on the end of her glove. "I mean, it's been okay when you've snuck out at lunch _so far_, but …"

"I _get_ it, Babs." Dick snapped.

Barbara gently placed her hand on his shoulder. "You know I'd normally do whatever you wa -"

"... you're going to be late for patrol," the brunet murmured.

The purple-and-black-clad girl frowned: she had at least seven or eight minutes left.

"...yeah," she agreed softly. "I guess I am."

The click of her heels faded slowly away as she went to the carport to pass the next few minutes tucked up against the wheel of her motorcycle.

* * *

><p><strong>Timeline #1 (Robin #1)<strong>

**Four Months Later**

**August 10th, 2011**

**Bludhaven, CT**

**Abandoned Warehouse**

_Crack._

Tim's hand popped through the smudged, shattered, slum-house basement widow; thick green juice gushed over his hand as he tore through the giant stem of one of Ivy's tentacle-like ferns.

"Bluejay, Batgirl," Red Robin tapped on his comm and wiped his hand on the ground. "I think this is the last of it. I'm heading out the window on the east side. What are your statuses?"

The three heroes were sludging through cleanup duty for a Poison Ivy attack Bruce had thwarted three hours ago at an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of Gotham. Red Robin wormed his out through the tiny hole, flipping himself onto his back to examine the damage on this side of the building.

"I think I've gathered all the spore samples for cataloguing and storage," Babs chimed in lightly. "Jay? How are you doing?"

Babs's voice - all of their voices - came muffled through their rebreathing masks.

"I'm doing 'disgusting', how about you?" Jason barked into the comm. "Pretty sure my new uniform is totaled. What _is_ this damn goo anyway?"

"It's viscous - _augh,_" Tim cut himself off with a groan of frustration and collapsed on the ground before he even pulled all the way out of the window. The entire wall of the five story building was choked with vines, flowers, and other flora. He kicked his feet - knees still dangling thought the window inside the apartment complex basement - in frustration.

"Is everything alright?" A note of panic slid into Babs' voice.

"Well," Red Robin panted, "Do you want the good news or the bad news?"

"... bad news," Batgirl said.

"The entire side of this building is also covered in poisonous vines."

Twin groans from the other side of his comm link. "So what's the good news?"

"... Jason's horrible costume is totaled."

"Did you just make a _joke_, Red?" Babs tittered.

"_Hey!_" Jason objected over her.

"Dude, even _I_ think it's hideous." Dick's cackled interrupted their pow-wow.

"Shut up, twerp. _You're _the lucky one here," Bluejay growled. "_You_ get to do this job in your _pajamas_."

"... something like that," Dick muttered.

"And can't a guy experiment? I mean, the old red ensemble wasn't exactly thematic; my name _is_ _Bluejay_."

A shuffling sound as Tim got to his feet: "And you felt like incorporating every single shade of blue the human eye can distinguish why, exactly?" A pop and a flood of something liquid drenching the hacker. "_Gross._"

"Karma, jerk," Jason muttered.

"Yeah, well it kind of looks like all seven seas puked on you." Dick's smirk was almost audible. "What's with the the orange, exactly?"

"It's, _I don't know_, a complementary color?"

"Oh my, someone paid _attention_ in art class," Babs grinned.

"Miss Piper was _hot_, okay?" Bluejay grunted as he uprooted another poisonous flower. "We're going to need bigger guns for this, losers. Any ideas?"

"Dick, what do we have available nearby?" Tim asked. "This isn't exactly in our normal jurisdiction."

"It is a little weird Poison Ivy's out of her designated area," Batgirl agreed, scraping the last of the pollen samples into a vial. "Also," she snickered at the oldest, "you told me the orange was supposed to look like wings … and represented _friendship._"

"That's - I hate you all. _Squirt!_" he snapped at Dick into his comm. "Doesn't the Big B have a Bat Whacker somewhere?"

Laughter tittered across their connection.

"Like a _weed_ whacker, guys," Jason growled. "Christ, you're all more perverted than I am. Just send us the coordinates of some heavy machinery we have stored in this area, okay?"

The trio opened their wrist computers expectantly.

_gi7etqfeh *3~° ~4p H; 061° 41p 2;_

"What the hell is that?"

Tim sighed. "He's typing upside down, again, I think."

"Oops, hands too far to the left and up," came Dick's not-at-all-apologetic apology. "I'm _also_ typing backwards. And blind."

"And a waste of our time," Jason snapped.

"_Sorry_," Dick whined. The acrobat was twisted upside down in Bruce's chair, back resting on the seat, feet and legs up over the back. His head dangled off the bottom of the chair and was under the desk; his hands reached up and around over the top of the console to type. He was, in fact, typing upside-down, backwards, and blind.

The brunet sighed and righted himself, tugging his twisted cape out of his way. He was definitely _not_ in his pajamas, even though his uniform hadn't seen action in months.

"Here you _go_," he mumbled petulantly. "The nearest storage building is northeast. It's not too far."

_Bludhaven (41° 15' N / -72° 52' W)_

Babs knit her eyebrows as she punched the coordinates into her wrist computer and cross referenced them with the area, pulling out to see the map beyond the warehouse itself.

It was by the old fairgrounds … and the circus was in town. She knit her brows.

"Look, I know you're bored, Robin," Babs said, a note of false cheer slipping into her voice. "So, guess what? We're good here - just going to take out the trash. Is Alfred free? He can help us with the rest. Go do something more fun."

"More ... fun," Dick parroted flatly.

"Yeah, watch a movie, work out. Anything -" she said, biting back the '_you want_' part of '_Anything you want_.'

"... right."

Batgirl tossed a pointed look at Tim – Jason would, of course, be no help – and spread her hand to show that he should expand the map as well. A concerned look fell across his features.

"Yeah," he agreed hesitantly. "Why don't you take off for the night."

"Oh _okay._" They could almost hear the scowl in the youngest's voice: "Why don't I just _take five _and do something _fun _locked in the _house."_

"Dick, don't be like that," Babs whispered into her comm. "It's been _working_."

House lockdown had, in fact, worked like a charm. Dick hadn't passed out since the anniversary of the "small-i" incident, and the current hypothesis was that stress triggered the events. Which meant no more high-pressure missions, no more fighting. "Fun" usually entailed calculus, working out, and laundry. Or doing dishes.

No more _life_.

_Whee._

Even more than that, it meant – _especially_ - no more exposure to anything related to his friends.

When pressed for the picture, Dick had insisted that he didn't take it; he didn't even remember it, and even if he _had_, he must have lost it on the way home, and it was probably falling apart in the snow between Wally's house and the Central City zeta beam.

"Please," Babs insisted. "For me?"

When he was being honest, however, even Dick silently acknowledged that the rules were unfair but probably a good idea.

"Yeah," he murmured. "For you."

Babs's voice reflected her giant grin. "Awesome. Why don't you go watch _The Maltese Falcon_?"

She picked the last movie they'd watched together, curled up on the couch, kettle corn in their laps, Babs's red hair falling over his shoulder as they competed to figure out who did it first. He 'let her win' _sometimes._

Dick sighed. That had been fun. Barbara was the wrong shape and size to fill the gaping whole his friends – all his friends – had left, but it was something.

"Or, uhm, _Planet of the Apes?_"

… _Pass_. Dick thought.

"I'm good. I'll watch more of that Agatha Christie DVD set you got for your birthday." Dick tapped out of the console, files winked out like stars drowning in the dawn.

"Cool, don't tell me whodunnit." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "Love ya."

"Sure thing, and uh, yeah … me, too."

They'd never _talked _about dating or that kiss in March or even the fact that she'd been a part of locking him in the house. But still … it just happened.

"Batgirl and everyone else out." Three comms beeped off, and Dick gently tossed his headset on the console.

_Maybe Alfred has some dishes to wash. _He sulked. _Maybe I'll work out. Maybe I'll just go to bed._

Dick's eyebrows fell as he twisted back into an upside down position in the chair.

He gently tugged the picture of he and Wally from the ledge under the desk, where he had lodged it at the beginning of the mission. It slipped it into a clumsily sewn pocket – just the right size for it – on the inside of his tunic, over his left breast, and the boy went upstairs to find Alfred and something to do until everyone got home.

* * *

><p><strong>Timeline #1 (Robin #1)<br>****August 11th, 2011  
><strong>**Gotham City, CT  
><strong>**Batcave**

"Ugh, take this and burn it, kid."

Jason peeled off the ripped and stained shirt of his new uniform and threw it at Dick's head. Robin wrinkled his nose and fought off a wave of nausea as he caught it. "What did you do, crawl through a sewer, _BJ_?"

"... don't call me that, and see how you smell after a meat flower explodes on you," the older boy snapped. "Red's more my style anyway."

Dick just shrugged and tossed it in with the rest of the uniforms in the laundry basket in the Batcave.

It was almost four am; Bruce billowed in from patrol and regarded them somberly. "You all have school in the morning, and Barbara, your father would not be pleased if he knew you were coming home at this hour. Go to bed."

Tim wrapped the final label on a vial filled with sap from one of the plants, and the computer dinged, signaling that the surveillance footage from the mission had transferred for analysis. Babs, now in civvies, _tak-tak-taked_ away on the keyboard at the report and began automatic analysis and compilation of the three cameras the heroes wore.

"I think I'm going to shower for an hour," Red Robin sighed. Jason stretched and followed him upstairs.

"It was nice of you to get up an help us, Dick," Babs smiled softly as she ran a hand down the youngest boy's arm and squeezed his hand as she sauntered over to her cycle. Bruce raised an eyebrow; Dick responded with a tight, embarrassed smile.

"I'm … I'm going to see if Alfred needs help with the laundry," the brunet stammered. "I mean, I don't have to get up any time … soon."

Bruce gave him a patient smile. "You do that."

* * *

><p><strong>Timeline #1 (Robin #1)<br>****August 11th, 2011  
>20 minutes later<br>****Gotham City, CT  
><strong>**Wayne Manor**

"The Kevlar can't be thrown into the washing machine, Master Richard," Alfred intoned gently.

"Oh, huh?" Dick snapped out of a reverie and looked down at Tim's armored tunic in his hand. "Right, sorry."

He moved to hang it up in the specially calibrated dry cleaning area, but pulled back with a jerk.

"Ow," he hissed; a tiny thorn had pricked him in the index finger. He reflexively sucked away the dot of blood blooming from the pad and spreading into the grooves of his fingerprint.

"Master Richard?" Alfred inquired.

"It's nothing," the acrobat murmured. "Just tired."

"'Ow' doesn't usually express exhaustion."

Dick snorted. "Please, no worries."

He picked gingerly through the remaining clothes: Babs's uniform – _uh, it went _–

"Dry cleaning," the butler said. "And don't worry, she chooses to wash everything else of hers at home," he informed the boy smoothly.

Dick's blush flowed down to his neck: _Whew_.

The dryer shuddered to a stop. Jason's horrendous blue outfit was as clean as it was going to get that night, and Dick pulled the warm, soft cloth from the machine. Washing had torn the last of it to bits at the seams across the ribs, and something from the plants dissolved the bottom of one arm of the blue that extended over the shoulders and the chest. That particular shade was a pleasant, rich, sapphire blue, but the light blue collar above it was so tacky.

"Hmm," Alfred hummed, "We'll need to dispose of that, I suppose. Do everyone a favor and put it in the incinerator, please."

Dick chuckled and wandered to the far side of the basement to open the shoot. As the uniform dangled from his fingers over the black abyss, he hesitated, though. There was something about the blue on the arms that was comforting, familiar.

Maybe it reminded him of his mother's eyes.

He glanced over his shoulder – _why would he need to keep this secret from Alfred?_ - but nevertheless, he discretely tore the strip of sapphire from the orange and the robin's egg blue. It tucked neatly under his shirt; the rest tumbled into the dark and dissolved in a puff of smoke.

"Uh, Alfred?" he called across the cavernous room. "All that's left is the dry cleaning, right? Can I head upstairs?"

The butler didn't look up from folding Bruce's civvies. "Feel free; sleep well, Master Richard."

"Night!" Dick sang as he hopped up the stairs two at a time.

"Good ni – er, morning as it were."

And indeed, slivers of dawn cut through the curtains and colored the white plush rug orange when Dick padded into his room. An odd lightheadedness washed over him as he brushed his teeth; he shrugged off his jeans, his long sleeved shirt. He pulled on a pair of flannel pjs, but halfway into his t-shirt the blue caught his eye again.

It lay strewn across his bed: there was something sad and lonely about it, stripped of the rest of the costume. He dropped his shirt to the floor and rubbed the fabric between his fingers and thumb, relishing the smooth coolness in his hand until, compulsively he slipped under the collar.

He examined himself critically in the full length mirror; the shoulders were a little too broad; the half-shredded sleeves extended well beyond his hands. Jason was a big guy. The deep vee shape in the front looked pretty ridiculous, and maybe his chest wasn't quite cut out for that much skin … yet. He smirked. Well, maybe, since Bruce estimated that Dick was almost full height; his acrobat parents had been pretty compact.

On a whim, he grabbed a pair of scissors from his desk, held the sleeves to wrist length, and started to snip.

"_No,_ dude, what the hell are you doing?"

Dick spun around, but there was no one in the room.

… _Wally?_

He squeezed his eyes shut and turned back toward the mirror– one, two, _three_ deep breaths. _Don't do this, don't do this, Grayson; it's been four months; you're better now, you're –_

"You can't cut it like that. It's the right shade of blue, though."

His voice was there, right behind him, _right at his ear_, and the scent of caramel corn wafted over Dick's head. He hesitantly let his eyes flutter open.

Wally regarded the acrobat casually over Dick's shoulder, smiling broadly in the mirror. He was in green flannel pajama pants and a faded red t-shirt, like he'd been there _all night_, like he'd just kicked Dick's ass in Halo, and they were finally going to pass out as they crashed from a soda high.

"Brings out your eyes," he said coolly, cocking one eyebrow and nodding in approval. Dick gaped at the boy in the mirror. "Chicks dig that."

Dick continued to stare. "No," he whispered.

Wally shrugged and plucked the scissors out of the startled acrobat's hands. _"Trust _me, dude._"_

"You – you're _dea_- … wait, how would you even _know?"_

"I dunno." The redhead tugged the blue on the most damaged sleeve so that it made a straight line down Dick's arm. "Sufficiently advanced technology?"

"_Magic_?" Dick barked. "What – do they give womanizing seminars in _heaven_?"

He spun around toward his friend, but the room was empty, and his words echoed aimlessly between the walls. Dick dropped his head into his hands. More hallucinations. Exhausted, he sighed and bent down for the scissors. But they were gone.

His heart in his chest thrummed as he popped back up toward the mirror.

Wally's friendly, freckled face smirked back at him, still behind him, just to his right side. "Can't get rid of me that easily."

"Augh!" Dick shouted. "You're _creepy_."

Wally laughed.

"Yeah, probably a little. Annnyway," he drawled, and a note of sarcasm slipped into his tone, "you'd be _sooo_ surprised what you get for good behavior up there. 24-hour hot tubs, all you can eat buffet, all the hottest girls ... _anything_. … well. Almost anything."

"You're kidding."

"_Duh_." He caught one of Robin's wrists between his fingers and pulled it out perpendicular to his torso. The redhead threaded the blue along the top of his extended arm. "_Regardless_, you still won't be _joining_ me any time soon if you don't pay attention."

Another raised eyebrow and a cocky smirk: "Because you, dude, were about to commit a crime against all of _humanity_."

"What?"

Wally pulled the sleeve taut past his fingers and folded the extra material under his fingers. "Hmm. I think it's okay if you hold that there."

Robin caught the lycra between his middle and ring finger and frowned. "_Hey_, I know what you are."

"Yeah?"

"You're that thorn in Tim's tunic."

"Hold still, dude." The redhead bit his lower lip and ran his fingers under Dick's arm and his thumb over the blue cloth pressing it down his bicep, over his elbow. Goosebumps trailed after Wally's touch and the lightheaded sensation intensified; Dick shivered.

"No, I mean, I'm _hallucinating_. Poison Ivy must have had something on that -"

"Shh," The redhead scolded. His brows were knit in deep concentration, and he meticulously, slowly clipped the blue into one even stripe.

"Okay, now I _know_ this isn't real because you would _never_ be this careful."

Wally snorted. "I am when it counts, Robs."

Robin couldn't help but grin and turned back toward the mirror. Wally stared intently at his task, and Dick let his eyes fall over his best friend, dressed in his bright yellow lycra uniform. He was so beautiful it made Dick's palms tingle; it _hurt_ every time Wally's pink slip of a tongue peeked out the side of his mouth when he straightened a cut, or when the runner threw a glance up at Dick in the mirror, cheeks drawn back like he was laughing at an inside joke that no one but Wally himself would ever get anyway.

A black, lonely void spread inside the him. It was dotted with tiny stars, though - each of the times he got to see Wally, all of their friends, each spark of hope that this _wasn't really happening this wasn't how it was supposed to be please just make this stop and wake me up for real or just let me pass out fore-_

"Now listen to this next part, Dick," grinning, Wally interrupted Robin's mental process, "because I'm not sure what I'm going to do here will stick."

The speedster knelt beside him, drawing Dick's arm back to his side and pinning the blue ribbon at his wrist. The extra fabric draped over Dick's hand and hung down his arm. Wally looked up at him with unearthly jade eyes, and Dick couldn't breathe, couldn't swallow with a suddenly desert dry throat.

Wally folded the excess fabric down and over Dick's middle fingers, trimming it to fit along them, and then snipped up the middle. He gently ran his thumb along the width of Dick's palm with an air of finality; Dick shivered again. Hopping back up, the speedster smiled like he was inordinately pleased with himself and shot Robin a significant look.

Dick frowned. "Uhm, what's that supposed to be?"

Wally narrowed his eyes. "Fingerstripes?" The subsequent '_duh'_ hung in the air unsaid.

"... what are those?"

"Stripes. That. Go down. Your fingers." Wally lifted Dick's palm and wrapped the two thin blue strips over Dick's middle and ring fingers.

"... for real?" Dick rolled his eyes. "Only you would come up with something so weird."

The speedster barked a sarcastic laugh. "Whatever you want to believe, dude. Anyway, this is really, really cool, so remember it, okay?"

Dick snorted and turned back to the mirror. The one trim arm hung with the two fringes of fabric for the finger stripes lay neatly over his shoulder, but the rest hung like a tattered flag, misshapen and ridiculous. "You say that like I'm going to do something with this strip of god-awful fabric. For starters, this vee shape down the front looks totally stupid."

Wally had moved behind him again, and a look of intense sadness, of deep loss, passed over his features. "It doesn't have to stay a vee."

Reaching underneath Robin's arms from behind, the redhead ran his palm flat against the boy's abs, pressing the curl of the cloth against him. With the other hand, he lightly traced notches along the outside of the shape. "See? Then it's more like an arrow and …"

Dick swallowed; he could feel Wally's heat pressed against his bare back, emanating from the runner's fingertips in front of him. His friend shifted both of his hands to the inside of thick triangle outline, tracing two more parallel notches on each inner portion.

"And if you cut here, then it will look like …."

His hands came to rest mid-rib on Robin's skin, his fingers nestled softly, intimately in the grooves of the bones. "... well, I've always liked the shape of lightning bolts."

Dick hadn't even noticed his eyes had fluttered shut to soak in the sensation; when he opened them again, Wally's head was hidden behind his own. He could feel his friend's forehead drop against the nape of his neck and stay there, warm, with soft tufts of red hair tickling his collar.

And he just felt so _real_, like if Dick leaned back into him, Wally would catch him, and he'd be alive; he would have never been _dead_, or he _would_ wake up from this awful dream.

And so the acrobat did; he leaned back into Wally's arms; he was just so tired, and he was sure he could just fall asleep against the speedster like he had after dozens of missions so many times so long ago. It felt so _great_; Wally was so _solid,_ and Dick just closed his eyes and sunk to the floor, through his friend, and into the dark.

"Just don't forget, okay?"

Wally's whisper faded into nothingness as Dick fell into a much needed, deep, peaceful sleep.


	23. Announcements and Things

So I'm going to use this chapter for any updates or announcements to go along with subsequent chapters!

I really wanted to consolidate Part I and Part II of "Of Recoil" because they really belonged together. I think that it hurts the rhythm of the storyline. But gets all pissy if I delete chapters and things, so I'm just using this as a placeholder. I'll mention in the notes at the beginning of each chapter if there's an update.

The biggest update is that I'm going to be doing way, way longer chapters! "Of Recoil" was actually about 6,000 words, and the next is 7,000.

I also really, really, really want to be almost done by the end of the first season of the show. We'll see how that goes (I'm pretty sure they'll be going on hiatus again after season one in the September, though). Anyway!

ALL IS WELL.


	24. Part II: And Grace

**Author's notes! **_I am back again! I hope that the length of this piece (apparently 8,000 words!) compensates for my long absence! As a reference, most of my updates have hovered around 3,000 words. I like the long format, so I think that I'll stick to it._

_My goal is to finish most of it by the end of the first season, though! We'll see if I can manage that in eight weeks._

_I want to thank my betas for this chapter: **Val**-**Creative**, **emileesaurus **_(who can be found at that blog name on tumblr!)_, and **Zeraphie** . They are goddesses on Earth. :)_

_I'm also turning Chapter 23 into an announcements chapter so that I could combine the two parts of "Of Recoil" because honestly, they belonged together. I'll let you know if I have added info to it in the author's notes at the beginning of each chapter. You can always find more stuff on my itswallie dot tumblr dot c om, since I post snippets, other stories, and updates periodically there!_

**_Things get better from here on out! Honest!_**

* * *

><p><strong>The Story So Far:<strong> Nightwing went back in time to save the team from danger during a Yukon mission in April of 2011 to confiscate an energy crystal that could power a dangerous ray gun.

He witnessed "himself" help the when he was Robin several years before. However, although Nightwing did his best to recreate the circumstances of the mission when he was there, things did not go as planned. After the mission ended, he decided to go visit to Wally. During his visit, he inadvertently revealed his identity and the fact that he's a time traveller.

He also discusses some of the theories he has about how the time travel may work, and suggests that there are actually multiple time lines created when anyone time travels. He suspects that there was at least one timeline that occurred before his timeline as Robin, since there would need to be a reason for the Nightwing he saw to travel back in time. He thinks that things must have been really bad in this timeline to justify something as dangerous and extreme as time travel.

He also reveals one other sliver of the future: he and Wally are together, and Wally dies.

Hoping not to change or mess up the timeline any more, he doesn't divulge any more concrete information. He returns to the future - which may or may not exist, since he's changed the past.

Once he steps into the light of the time travelling portal, the story recounts that first "really bad" timeline - Timeline #1.

In Timeline #1, all of the team was killed during the Yukon mission except for Dick, and the Light later used the energy crystal to destroy The Watchtower and kill half the League. In a world robbed of half its heroes, members of the Light have divided and conquered the Earth, and chaos reigns - particularly in Gotham. Since the mission, Dick has become increasingly unstable, suffering blackouts under stress in which he hallucinates that his friends are still alive.

Dick woke up on the roof of Wally West's house on the anniversary of Wally and the team's deaths. He had a horrible wound in his side, but on his way home, he slipped into Wally's room and took a picture of he and his best friend.

In the last chapter, Dick's frustrated at being excluded from the missions his friends are on, but is feeling better, so he accepts it. However, when Jason throws away his latest monstrosity of an experimental costume, Dick's attracted to the blue that covered his arms and shoulders. When he takes it up to his room to tailor it, he gets a visit from an old friend and some sewing lessons ...

* * *

><p><strong>Timeline #1 (Robin #1)<br>****Four Months Later  
><strong>**November 30th, 2011  
><strong>**Gotham City, CT  
><strong>**Batcave**

He couldn't sleep.

The clinical blue light of the computer painted Dick's features the color of his eyes as, alone, he tapped in frustration at the keyboard. The chill of the midnight hour – quite a bit after midnight, actually - pushed past the light cotton defense of his PJs, and he shivered.

It was cold and quiet. His life had become so _quiet_ since the 'incident', since he was grounded.

The laughter of the team – _Wally_ – lived only in his mind now. His fellow Batkids were young but grim, smiles sarcastic, laughter muted and empty. He no longer even had the cacophony of city to distract him: broken, beautiful Gotham, glittering in the endless rain.

Normally, though, he would have at least another teasing voice of one of his fellow birds to lend a little warmth as he suffered through case files, but Tim and Jay had taken the night off for family and school commitments, and Bruce was out of the country, breaking up a trafficking ring in South America. Babs wasn't supposed to be out all by herself tonight, but he suspected that she was.

Pinching the bridge of his nose, he flipped through the files from Poison Ivy's attack on the abandoned, hapless old apartment building earlier that year. The crumbling carcass sat firmly in Penguin's district on the border of Gotham and Bludhaven, but Ivy had completely gutted it from below its foundations. The roots of the plants had stopped growing, and now they just occupied the basement and grounds around the building, extending who knew how far from the center of the damage.

It would take years before that variety of giant vine – stem diameters in excess of ten feet – would rot away.

_What good did that do anybody?_

There was no sign of anything to be gained from the destruction of the building, and furthermore, there had been no retaliation over the last few months from Penguin for the damage to his property. It hadn't been a distraction, either; nothing else bigger or badder went down anywhere in Gotham that night. No sign of some strange new collusion between Ivy and Penguin.

It just didn't add up.

Tim and Babs had both dismissed it as just one of her manic episodes. Batman had patiently told him to keep looking – though Dick was pretty sure Bruce was just humoring his extreme boredom.

This could be an outlet for his … hmm, "_insanity"_ was too strong a word. And obviously stripping of the "_in_" didn't solve the problem.

Maybe he was just '_azy_' without a full upgrade to the '_cr_.'

Dick snapped all the windows on the apartment case closed and pulled up file on the thorn that had pricked him that night while he was cleaning Tim's tunic.

The last time he'd "seen" Wally.

The formula for the drug bloomed bright on the screen, chemical bonds all tendrils and twists and turns. He still didn't know what it was. He hadn't told anyone he'd touched it; it was just an unimportant, miscellaneous side-note tucked in with all the other biological samples gathered that night. Better not to have them asking why he was especially interested.

Since he wasn't supposed to be taking sewing lessons from his dead friends.

He'd come to on the floor that morning with vivid memories of the hallucination - _no, no_, _the dream, the _dream.

_It was just a _dream, Dick insisted. _A drug induced dream_.

But the blue fabric still draped over his shoulders that morning when Alfred knocked on his door. It had four small cuts in what was left of the sleeve. They wrapped around his middle fingers perfectly.

_You did it yourself in your sleep, Grayson_, he chided himself.

_Open._

_Shut._

_Case._

He stared at elegant structure as it rotated idly for a few more minutes before sighing.

The lapses in judgment, the hallucinations were as terrifying to him as everyone else. Though perhaps not as terrifying as the small part of him that just wanted to _manufacture_ the drug instead of merely understanding it.

_You're not letting yourself get sick again_, Dick muttered without much reassurance.

The chair in front of the computer swiveled silently as the brunet shut down the last of the files. The clap of his flip flops echoed throughout the cave and up the interminable staircase to the house, where the thick, lush carpet swallowed his steps as he made his way to his room.

It didn't seem like Alfred was home, either: Bruce probably needed some sort of help in South America. Their vigilance had eroded slowly over the last few months, and this wasn't the first time he was totally alone. His solitude was really kind of comforting, in that it spoke volumes about how much they trusted him, or rather, thought that he was well.

He was almost free. Without much actual freedom, but it was a start.

Like a trapped, paralyzed pet.

_It's working;_ _it's working_, he assured himself. _It's working; don't screw it up_.

He carefully shut the door to his bedroom behind him, slipping the lock into place, more out of habit than anything.

Instead of crawling beneath the sheets though, tangled from his earlier efforts to sleep, Dick paused at the end of his bed.

_Don't screw it up don't screw it up. It's working_.

He dropped to his knees and tugged on an old sewing box, a small chest that extended just past the edges of his lap. He pulled the shabby box halfway out from under the bed. A tiny lock, more of a clasp, really, held it shut, but the key dangled from gift ribbon right below it. It was covered in construction paper, packing tape and stickers, but bright tacky flowers peeked out from behind the faded, tattered covering: clearly it had belonged to someone's grandmother. Dick gingerly ran his fingers along the short edges of the box and to the middle; they met right above the lock.

A warning was scrawled along the top in red crayons, with the careless hand of an eleven-year-old:

_Wally's Box. Keep out or else. Protected by The Flash!_

The corners of his eyes pricked with tears.

* * *

><p><strong>Timeline #1 (Robin #1)<br>****Six Weeks Earlier  
><strong>**October 17th, 2011  
><strong>**Gotham City, CT  
><strong>**Wayne Manor**

"Dick." Bruce's voice drifted softly through his door, followed by a light knock. "Can I come in?"

Dick glanced up from his homework.

"Sure," he called over his shoulder as he shut his calculus book and spun toward his mentor. Bruce cradled a beat-up package in his hands and sat on Dick's bed, motioning for the acrobat to join him and depositing the box on the far side of his lap. He spoke even more carefully than usual.

"You're feeling better."

Dick smiled ruefully and shrugged. "As much as I can, I guess."

The older man hummed in agreement. "You've been very patient. That takes a lot of fortitude."

The young hero shuffled under the compliment, unsure of what to say.

"Last March, Dick, Barry gave you something for your birthday."

Bruce cleared his throat. "Or rather, he gave it to me. I hope you'll understand why I kept it until now." He picked up the box and paused. "But I think it's time you have it."

The box felt fragile as Bruce pressed it into Dick's hands. The construction paper was worn and rough, and his thumb slipped underneath one unsecured edge as he turned it over. The tips of his fingers came away slightly waxy as he ran them over Wally's easily identifiable scrawl across the top.

He couldn't speak.

"Dick," Bruce murmured, gingerly placing his broad hand on the the boy's shock of silky hair. "Do you want to keep it?"

Dick tried to say 'yes' but he couldn't, so he nodded wordlessly, swallowing a sudden lump in his throat.

"Would you like me to stay while you open it?" his mentor's soothing tenor asked softly.

A strange, choked noise emerged from Dick's throat, but he shook his head clumsily. He wasn't that fond of the idea of bawling in front of his mentor.

Bruce frowned but nodded. "Would you like me to go now?"

A longer pause, and then a muted nod.

The older man struggled for a moment. "I'll be just down the hall in the study if you need me. So will Alfred."

Bruce stood and turned back to his ward.

"If you ever need ... If you ever want me to keep it for you, of course I will."

Dick nodded, and, reluctantly leaving the trembling boy on his bed, Bruce shut the door behind him.

A wet drop stained a spot on the bright red construction paper dark crimson.

* * *

><p><strong>Timeline #1 (Robin #1)<br>****November 30th, 2011  
><strong>**Present Day  
><strong>**Gotham City, CT  
><strong>**Wayne Manor**

Bruce had kept a very close eye on him in the week or so following the gift, but he'd never asked about the box directly, and Dick never brought it up. The acrobat managed pretty easily to keep the appearance of normalcy, not in the least because the box still sat locked beneath his bed.

Because Dick hadn't opened it that night. He'd never opened it.

He built a ritual of sorts around the box, though, usually when he couldn't sleep. He'd pull it out from under the bed, look at it; hold it. It rattled when he turned it over. Sometimes he'd just stare at that key, dangling from a half-shredded red strand of gift ribbon tied at the bottom of the clasp. He wondered if – no, he _knew _– Bruce already knew what was inside. He'd probably x-rayed the hell ou - or, okay, he'd probably just opened it.

Dick would stare at it until the odd feeling of loneliness ebbed, and he would push it back into its spot under the bed. But the feeling was taking longer and longer to flow away these days.

Tonight the tide was especially high.

_You're fine; it will be fine_, he told himself. _It's been six weeks; you're not scared of anything. This just full of Wally's old stuff; it's not Pandora's Box_.

He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and turned the key in the lock.

The click was impossibly loud, louder than the jackhammer of his heart right now, but the cheap cardboard lid flipped back soundlessly. His eyes fluttered open.

The box was full of ... Robin.

Old newspaper articles, toys, all kinds of unofficial junk that commemorated Dick's first few years of Robin. A couple of the clippings were in cheap, black department store frames. Dick flipped over the one on top: the very first article about him – from the _Gotham Sentinel_ – yellowing copy below a blurry black-and-white photograph of him dark against the sky with Bruce.

_Who is the Boy Wonder?_

Dick grinned a little as he picked it up, and a folded piece of printer paper tucked in the back of the photograph slipped out: a giant head scribbled in crayon, with a shock of black hair and a mask. Huge green and purple question marks floated above it, and the phrase below was written in five different colors, one for each word:

_Who is the Boy Wonder?_

"Oh, _man_."

Dick froze as a light breeze settled behind him, followed by the crinkle of a wrapper pulled away from an energy bar and an all-too-familiar chuckle. "If I knew where my grave was, I'd go roll me over."

"Wally," Dick said softly.

"I wish he had given you the _other_ box underneath my bed." The speedster was leaning over Dick now. "_That_ would at least be less embarrassing."

Dick turned a little, and Wally was inches from his face, a mischievous grin spreading across his features. "But _nooooo_ he probably handed that over to mom, and humiliated me in every possible posthumous way."

"Wally, what are you -?"

"Look, it's Mr. Twister's eyeball!" The redhead's gloves pawed through the fragile box in front of him.

Dick smiled wanly in spite of himself. "Yeah. I wonder how Barry finagled keeping it. Everything else was confiscated or returned to their owners … or, uh, next of kin a guess," Dick finished softly. "That was your first team souvenir, right?"

"Naw," Wally replied.

"But you didn't get anything from Cadmus."

"Ha, _that_ was Supey."

"Really? Your first team souvenir was _Superboy_?" Dick snorted.

"Eh," Wally shrugged noncommittally as he shuffled through the pictures and paper clippings to turn over the other framed newspaper article and tapped gently on the glass. "Oh, hey, remember this?"

_Central City Heist Foiled by Red Flashes and Black Bats! Unstoppable Foursome Brings National Crime Ring to Justice._

"Yeah, that was the first time I'd ever been to Central," Dick laughed. "So what'd you get from that day - "

"Dude, you're messing up the system," Wally interrupted. He pushed Robin to the side and started carefully rearranging all the knickknacks according to some totally opaque and seemingly random organization. "… and as awesome as it is to watch you fawn over all my rare Robin memorabilia collection because you miss me so much ..."

"_Pfft_," Dick snorted. "Don't flatter yourself. This is the first time I've cracked open your creepy box of OCD Robin obsession."

Wally cocked an eyebrow at him. "Really? Kind of a coincidence, I guess. _But_, don't flatter _yourself_, bird brain, because looks like Barry gave all the Speedy stuff to Roy. And all the other team crap away, too."

Dick just smirked. There wasn't all that much free space in the box, frankly.

Dusting off his hands, the speedster ran a palm through the hair above his mask. "But like I was saying, I'm here for another reason, dude."

Robin slid the box under the bed. "Do I need knitting lessons now?

"Funny. In fact, sorry I'm late, but we need to go. Probably want to get dressed. I mean, your pajamas are kind of cute, but they're a little bright. Dark civvies only, kay?"

Wally got up and started going through Dick's closet.

"What? Where?"

"It's a _surpriiiise_," the speedster said petulantly, palms out. "Trust me, it will totally be fine. Come on!"

Dick sat up and let his face drop into his hands. "Wally, I'm already grounded for life. I'd rather not be grounded for two lives."

The speedster tossed his head back and laughed. "Dude, won't happen. Promise." The redhead's face fell into a gentle, serious smile. "Please? For me?"

"Wally ... " Dick stared at his hands on his lap. "You don't even exist. You're a hallucination. Or I'm dreaming. Or worse, I'm blacked out again. You show up; I almost get killed."

"For starters, you need to get your cause and effect in order, dude." Wally's expression slipped further into concern. "But Dick, it's really hard. It's getting really, really hard to see you this sad. Please - this will help."

Dick sat silently. Wally turned to the closet to pull out some of his clothes, shaking his head. "Not like you." He dumped a heather grey tee shirt, charcoal black jeans, and a thick black hoodie in his younger friend's lap. "Getting out of the house will make you less crazy."

"Can't," the brunet retorted flatly. "Bruce has upped security."

"The only reason you haven't gotten out is that you haven't tried, and you know it." Rustling through Dick's drawers, Wally tossed Robin his mask. "Probably want to take this, too. This is the last chance, okay? It's leaving tomorrow."

Dick just frowned. "How did you even know where I keep this?"

"Getting awesome at being a ghost, I guess." Wally cocked his hip and leaned over his friend, grinning playfully. "I'll haunt you foreeeeever if you don't. Daytime; nighttime; all day. _Everyday_."

A small, exhausted sigh slipped from the acrobat's lips, and he affixed his mask. "Fine."

"_Awesome._"

"On one condition." Wally couldn't make out Dick's expression beneath the white lenses. "Will you let me live a normal, non-hallucinating life after this?"

The speedster stalled for a beat.

Dick's request was barely a whisper: "Will you leave me alone?"

A shocked, hurt look crossed Wally's face, but for just a millisecond. "Yeah, Dick," he smiled softly. "Whatever you want. I'm your hallucination, after all."

"Okay." Dick zipped up his hoodie and tossed his pajama pants on the bed. "Let's go."

* * *

><p>The hacker carefully ducked out of range of one of the cameras as he re-routed the feed for 30 seconds before passing by. He timed each step perfectly through the maze in the house, brows knotted in concentration.<p>

Wally, on the other hand, waltzed right though everything; constantly running ten feet ahead and then back like an excited puppy.

"Calm down; I have to concentrate!" Robin hissed. His wristwatch hit exactly 1:37:18; he sprinted past the next alarm and let it reactivate automatically. Wally popped up behind him.

"Sol'ly," Wally said through a mouthful of Nutter Butters, and Dick shot him a dirty look.

"Where the hell did you get those?"

"We jus' passhed th' ki'chn," Wally shrugged. "G'tta eat wh'n I can."

Dick snickered and pressed the house door open. "What happened to the heavenly '24-Hour-All-You-Can-Eat buffets'"?

Wally just shrugged again awkwardly as he finished off a banana next to his friend, hiding in the by the garden. "Not even heaven can handle my appetite."

A soft November rain dusted Dick's hair.

"Augh. I believe it." He closed his eyes and took a literal leap of faith over the ground's outer wall.

They both froze, waiting expectantly for the trill of the silent alarm system on Dick's wrist computer. Nothing. The hacker flipped through the camera history, and as far as the house knew, Robin was asleep in his bed and would be till morning.

Part of Dick hoped that yes, that actually was the case, and this was all a crazy - _fantastic_ - dream.

"Here," Wally said, turning around and crouching down so that Dick could climb on his back. "It''ll be faster."

Dick hesitantly reached for his friend's shoulders and put part of his weight on them. Wally started to lift, but suddenly, it was like he wasn't there, and a chill breeze flowed over Dick's torso as he landed on his ass at the speedster's feet.

"... damn," Wally muttered. "Not _that _great at being a ghost, yet, I guess."

Dick brushed off his jeans and shrugged. "Not even my broken subconscious believes someone who isn't there can pick me up, apparently."

"Alright, come on. There's a ways to go," Wally said before taking off at a jog.

The two heroes sprinted through the city, cutting through alleys and over the occasional rooftop. At the very least, an hour of the wind in Dick's hair was exhilarating, and he was relieved that all his training indoors had paid off, because it was like he'd never left the field.

The redhead lead his friend through increasingly tattered streets, right to the edge of Gotham, and Dick pulled out his grapple to keep up with the increasingly over-excited speedster. Wally evaporated once again, so Robin crawled up a particularly high-ledge to look for him; he spun around, and his friend almost knocked him off the side.

"Crap, you startled me," Dick groused. "How the hell did you get up here?"

"How do I get anywhere? I've made time and space my -"

"_Right_, of course," the brunet interrupted with a snort. "So are we there yet?"

Wally grinned. "Last stop. You can see the spot from the roof of this building."

The speedster flashed up the rest of the dilapidated ledge to the roof and leaned over, extending one hand. It trembled slightly.

"I can reach the ledge –" Dick began, remembering the way that he'd passed straight through Wally's shoulders at the mansion, but something in the speedster's eyes quieted him. His breath caught, his lungs tightened in the chill night air, and he reached out for his friend's hand.

... So warm.

... So _solid_.

Wally's grin shone like sunlight now, and he tugged. Dick rose with his grip, up and over the ledge.

"Oh whew," Wally let out a huge sigh of relief. "Soon I'll be rattling your crystal chandeliers with just a thought, huh?"

"I ..." Dick stammered, giving him a weak smile and ignoring the shiver running up his spine. The moonlight filtered over the grey concrete roof, painting filigreed shadows through pipes and air ducts and skylights.

"You ready?" Wally whispered. He folded one of Dick's bare hands into his gloved one and led him toward the far side of the roof. "Hmmm, close your eyes?"

The chill intensified, and Wally peered carefully at him. The acrobat held his breath and let his eyes slide shut behind his mask.

Ten steps. The rough grit of the gravel beneath his shoes. He listened for the other hero's feet as well, but he couldn't make them out.

Wally's fingers tightened around his for just a moment, squeezing almost painfully. "Okay. Open up, dude."

_Now _the speedster was nervous.

Dick's eyes fluttered open.

The fairgrounds.

The circus was in town.

A wave of nausea hit him, and the ledge crumbled a little beneath his feet as he stumbled back. Wally had already maneuvered behind him, though, and caught the suddenly graceless boy.

"W-Wally, I ..." he stammered. "… what?"

Confused, the Wally frowned and craned his neck over Dick's shoulder, trying to read the boy's expression. "Uh …"

"What is this?" Dick whispered. He didn't sound angry, exactly, but something dangerous was creeping into his tone. "Why?"

"Er, well, it's just that tomorrow's the last day ..." He obviously didn't expect Robin to be upset.

"… _and_?"

"… well, don't you want to go?" Wally must have left all his marbles by the Pearly Gates.

"_What?_ Why in the world would I? They're _gone,_ Wally. _Everyone's_ gone." Dick curtly shouldered his friend aside and stalked back toward the ledge they'd arrived on. "I don't need any damn _help_ remembering that."

"No, wait, that's not …" Wally dashed over to the retreating boy, catching his arms. "Please, that's not what -"

"Graveyards and flowers are plenty, Wally, what the hell?" Dick's cheeks started to glow red in spite of the bite of the early morning breeze.

"But it will be okay! I know it will be okay."

"You _know_? And how do you '_know_' that? Should I add fortunetelling to your damn repertoire?"

"No! I mean, I can't know the future exactly, but..."

"Well, you're having pretty hard time with the present, because it will _not_ be okay since I'm going home. I'm not risking Bruce's trust for this."

"Please, please. Can you ... can you trust _me_?"

"Wally, we've been over this, and you don't _exist_. _What is there to trust_?

"Okay, fine, I get your point," he said to the retreating boy, who had one foot already up on the banister at the far edge of the roof. "But if I don't _exist_ then what are you doing here?

Dick stalled.

"If I don't exist, then this must be all _your idea_. Somewhere in your crazy brain you _wanted_ to come here."

Gravel rattled off the edge of the roof as the wind picked up.

"... Am I wrong?"

Dick slid back off the railing and, back to Wally, rubbed his temples. "Crazy is right."

"You're not crazy. I promise. You change your mind once we're there – we leave, and I leave you alone for good."

The cool autumn air pinched Dick's cheeks bright red. "... Okay. Let's go."

* * *

><p><strong>Timeline #1 (Robin #1)<br>****Present Day  
><strong>**November 30th, 2011  
><strong>**Gotham City, CT  
><strong>**Fairgrounds**

A small gap in the fence at the edge of the circus grounds was easy enough to navigate. Times were tough, and security was slack, but even so, Robin kept an eye out for closed circuit broadcast frequencies on his watch. It was totally unnecessary, though, because somehow – _somehow_ – the speedster knew the circus grounds backward and forward, and they expertly dodged all the cameras. A finger at Wally's lips and a sharp palm down signaled that Robin should drop to the patchy grass as they slipped by the one guard station. A heavyset man snored soundly under his moustache, and it would probably take a bomb to wake him. A short jaunt later, they were at the edge of the bright red and yellow tent.

Wally turned to Dick expectantly.

"It's your time to shine, 'Mr. I Hacked the Motion Sensors'," Wally grinned. "Take out the cameras, dude."

The wrist computer whirred as it scanned the area: "Uh, there are no cameras. Only on the perimeter, and you got us past those."

Wally frowned. "Are you sure? I don't want the clown police to chase us down. They're creepy."

"No scary clown police, KF," Dick chortled, "This place can barely afford a clown security guard."

"Kay," Wally nodded. "Showtime."

It was dead quiet under the expansive circus tent, but when Dick let his eyes drift shut for a moment, the familiar, overwhelming, hammering sounds of the crowds drifted through his mind unbidden. The cacophony of the organ, the smell of cotton candy ...

Wally's yammering interrupted him. "I got 'ome 'otton 'andy 'ou wan it?" He downed another blue puff – of the three he held in his hands.

"Where did you get that? Don't steal."

"Wha'? It was jus' 'onna goh badh."

"It doesn't … never mind." Robin waved a hand. "I'm good."

"Wha'ever, mo' fo' me." His grin widened as he inhaled the last of it.

The speedster lagged behind as Robin wandered through the dimly lit tent. Even at half power, the flood lights painted the walls a cartoonish crimson and lemon. Still classily licking the last bit of sugar off his gloves, Wally tapped his insignia.

"Better camouflaged in the red and yellow, am I right," he giggled.

Ignoring the goosebumps crawling up his arms, Dick wasn't really listening as he reached the center ring and paused in front of the towering trapeze rig. Subconsciously, he wrapped his arms in front of him.

"Cold?" A wave of heat rolled off the redhead sidling up behind him, enveloping the acrobat like the heat of a 1000 people below him in a performance. He instinctively leaned back into it, and Wally braced his shoulders.

"You ... you doing okay? We can go back."

"No, I'm perfect." The solvent came out of his belt, and the brunet spritzed his mask. Peeling all that was Robin away from his eyes, only Dick Grayson – a smiling, blue-eyed, 15-year-old boy – stood in front of Wally now.

"So, wanna learn how to use the trapeze?"

Wally's grin matched his friend's, stretching across his freckled cheeks. "I thought you'd never ask."

* * *

><p>"Okay," Dick grinned and grabbed the rungs on the trapeze stage ladder. "Follow me."<p>

At the top, he let the one trapeze go, watching it swing toward the middle. Turning to Wally behind him, he ordered: "Stay here."

Dick jogged up the far ladder and, grabbing the opposing rung, backed up, and flew through the air. At the apex of the swing, he let go, spun once, snapped up the far trapeze and hooked his knees over it. Before he slid off to dismount on Wally's platform, though, he noticed the speedster reaching out for him, and tentatively held his hands out. Wally grabbed his wrists and pulled him up.

Landing beside his friend, Dick looked at him suspiciously. "Uhm, okay. How did you know how to ...?"

"I also know kung fu." He shrugged genially. "I bet you could also probably catch me from the other one, if you want."

Dick cocked one eyebrow.

"No, really!"

"But you can't even... "

Wally grabbed Dick and hoisted him off the ground. "I'm totally getting better at this ghost thing."

"... "

"There's a net!"

"I'm not …"

"Seriously, it's not like I can die _twice_."

Wally handed Dick the trapeze and sped to the other side. "Ready?"

He nodded grimly in return.

Still, his heart dropped as Wally jumped from the platform and twisted his knees up onto the the bar. He matched the motion, though, and swung to the center toward his friend. Wally let go and flipped around to to reach out for him, and Dick felt Wally's fingertips brush his own in midair.

He caught him.

But the trapeze for the impoverished circus was in disrepair, and the trapeze couldn't quite handle both of them. While the rung didn't completely break away, one metal ring snapped violently enough to shake Dick off. He swung back toward the platform, but Wally didn't quite make it, and one hand slipped away.

Robin's chest turned so cold it _burned_, and the acrobat immediately plummeted after his friend. He gripped Wally's forearm and struggled to get at the grapple tucked away in his hidden belt as they tumbled from the height toward the floor.

_Toward the floor, oh god there's a net there's a net it's okay Wally's dead Wally's dead he can't even get hurt he can't get hurt, but he ..._

And Dick instinctively positioned himself beneath his friend as they hit the net, Dick choked as Wally's weight, the weight of him, the weight of everything drove the wind out of him_._

Wally scrambled off him, _alive he's alive_ and hoisted Robin up, a broken puppet, all loose joints and slack limbs, and held him, raven-haired head drooped against the redhead's chest, in a sort of kneeling position. The ropes bit into his knees; he felt the heat of the speedster's every breath float past the crown of his head, the reassuring rise and fall of his ribs. _Alive, alive_. Wally's voice was just an echo, lost in time and space:

"I'm so sorry, that didn't – I don't know – I _swear_, it shouldn't have gone like this I am so, so ..."

His own breathing shuddered – _inhale, exhale_ – to a human pace, the adrenaline draining along with the blood from his cheeks and face, flush with panic. He couldn't _see_; he couldn't _see,_ but his eyes were just _closed _– _when did he squeeze them shut so tightly?_ – and he struggled to open them.

He couldn't stop his trembling hands, though; he was grabbing the webbing in the net until it cut into his fingers. Wally was gently tugging them open:

"Dude, you'll draw blood; you're hurting yourself; let go, just let go; everything's _okay_."

As Wally pried each of his hands free, Dick replaced the netting with a chunk of Wally's uniform, pressing his forehead against the center of his lightning bolt and grabbing his insignia like he would fly away if he let go.

It was only then that Dick realized he'd started to cry, first one tear at a time, silently sliding over his downturned face and dropping into his lap, onto Wally's knees. The tears turned into open mouthed sobs, swelling into furious wails, and Wally stared in shock and worry at his breaking friend.

"I'm ... I'm so, so sorry ... I didn't ... it didn't do this ... I'm okay, and you're not hurt, right? Everything's oka – ..."

Dick's outburst ebbed as Wally gently patted him on the back, but he shook his head vehemently, crown of his head still pressed into Wally: _No_.

Wally froze mid pat.

"No, Wally," – his cracking voice dangerously soft – "It's not okay, Wally."

Wally knitted his brows sadly. "I ..."

"It's not okay, Wally, because you _died_ – you _all_ died in that mothership because I was _there_."

"But that - that wasn't even rea –"

"It's _not_ okay, Wally, because you – you all died _again_ – I killed you all _again_ in the Yukon because I _wasn't_ there."

"No –"

"It's _NOT_ okay, Wally, because no matter _what_ I do, everyone _dies_. Everyone around me _dies_, and I can't stop it or fix it or change it, and I should have _been there_, Wally, I should have _been there_ because maybe then Miss Martian wouldn't be in an urn and Superboy just a dot in the sky and Aqualad could have seen the ocean again and we might _know_ where Arty _is_ and you ... you ..."

Dick's voice shuddered into silence, his knuckles turning white with the squeeze of his grip on Wally's uniform.

Wally ran a gloved finger over one bright hot ear, tracing under the his to urge his face upward: "Dick, that's not true. You're ... you're _always_ ... always there to catch m-"

But he couldn't finish his sentence because Robin's lips were crushed against his own now, swallowing the rest of his sentence - _what did it really mean, anyway_ - mouth was open against his, hot and desperately needy. The kiss was clumsy and careless but filled with an urgent passion, Dick's tongue surging over his like water through a burst dam, knocking Wally back against the net, and the brunet followed with a small moan, pressing against him. Wally arched back into him running - _buzzing_ - one hand around the small of his friend's back and the other into his soft, floppy raven hair, drowning in his affection. Dick, groaning, met his touch count for count, until finally, gasping for breath, he braced his hands on either side of Wally's head and pulled away.

Wally's jaw fell slack, and he stared at the piercing azure eyes above him in shock.

Dick's breathing slowly fell even. "... s-say something," he prompted.

Wally shut his mouth to say one thing, froze and began another, froze again.

"Th-th-that was totally uh, un-unexpected ..."

The acrobat shut his eyes and let his head droop against Wally's chest. "Augh."

"I, uh, did you even ... then ... now?" Wally continued to stutter.

"... What?"

"Uhm ..."

He sighed heavily into Wally's lightning bolt as the speedster floundered for words.

"This is all … everything ... is all really ... really ... unexpected, Dick," he finally continued.

"So those fortune telling lessons in heaven aren't so telling?"

"... I guess their validity leaves a little something to be desired. Uh. To say the least."

Dick smirked against his chest. "I can't believe I'm getting gently let down by my imaginary best friend."

"NO." Wally shot up and lifted his friend by the shoulders until he could look the hero in the eyes. "No, that's not it at all." His voice fell soft: "... never. I'm sorry. This wasn't how things were supposed to ... It wasn't how I thought it ..."

Collapsing next to the speedster with a sigh, Dick rolled his eyes.

"_Friendzoned_," he called out sarcastically.

Wally's laughter echoed through the empty tent, reverbing happily off the walls. "But, dude, I thought I 'didn't exist'."

"Maybe I should reevaluate my definition of 'exist'," Dick murmured, "because I'm sort of gathering a lot of data that invalidates that hypothesis."

"I guess for certain values of 'exist', I –"

Grinning, Dick leaned over to just catch the brush of Wally's words on his lips, and he closed the tiny gap between them, slipping his tongue past his Wally's teeth. Dick wasn't sure how much time had passed when he broke away again, but he did know one thing: "... You _are_ getting really good at being a ghost."

"'Ghost' doesn't exactly make good 'bf material'," Wally said sardonically. "... it's not like I can pick out curtains with you anytime soon."

"Oh?" Dick propped his head up on one hand and turned toward him. "Who said anything about moving in? Do you really think I'm that easy?"

Wally snorted. "No," he elbowed Robin in the ribs. "I _know_ you're that easy."

Dick snickered and rolled back over the redhead. "Whatever, I learned it by watching you."

"... _dick_." Wally cleared his throat. "... soooooo. Does this mean you don't want me to leave you alone forever because I'm driving you insane?"

"Let me answer that in the form of a –" he laughed as he moved in.

Wally placed his hands against Dick's shoulders to stop him. "Okay, I'm serious, Dick. I'm not even sure when I can come back."

"Paperwork in heaven too complicated for you, Walls? I can teach you how to check the box that says 'I want to visit the hottest guy on planet earth, please'."

Wally gave him a half-lidded glare.

"So not really from heaven? Shocking."

"No," Wally whispered, tucking his head into Dick's shoulder, "but I'm getting closer."

"Are you really … dead?"

"That's a little harder. I'm going to go with mostly."

"Okay, fine. What are the rules?"

"Rules?"

"Visitation rules with the mostly dead."

"It's not 'rules,' exactly. Honestly, we'd all kill for a handbook. It's ... there are like leaks ... uhm, in ..."

"The Matrix?" Dick snickered.

"Sure, whatever. It's not even really a choice for me to show up, any more than water chooses to flow into a hole in the ground." He turned and gazed solemnly at the brunet. "But I don't know when the next pothole in the universe will show up. Or if another even will. Or if I'll make it through them all."

Robin nodded. "Then where do I sign up for the red pill?"

"You mean 'when', and the answer is 'not sure, I'll keep you posted,' and …" Wally sighed, holding up a hand. "I am about to tell you the meanest thing that anyone can ever say to anyone else, but you seriously need to take a blue one now and live this life like I never told you any of this, because I may be screwing it all up. For _real_ and _for_ _good_ this time. I'm sort of working off Cliff Notes for the wrong class that were half eaten by the neighbor's dog anyway."

Dick flopped down. "Alright, I guess."

"… you sure are taking this calmly."

"I have to say I prefer it to crazy."

There was a rustle outside the tent, and Wally's ears perked up. "Oh crap, that's your ride. He started to scramble away. "Gotta jet, dude, and be sure to patch things up with her, alright? I'm not actually real, okay?"

"Ok-"

"Dick!" Babs called as she scurried across the ring. "There you are. Were you talking to someone?"

"Uh-" Dick checked over his shoulder where Wally had been milliseconds before: _had he had the time to run away? Or was he never there at all?_

"I don't know what you -" he hedged as Babs began hurriedly lifting his arms and prodding his torso and legs. "What are you doing?"

"Looking for injuries, dummy. You blacked out -"

"Nono, I'm fine."

Babs glared.

"I promise! I remember all of tonight. No fights, either."

"So you _chose_ to break into the circus and curl up on the net under the trapeze at 3 am?" Babs dragged him to the ground. "Christ, you must actually be going insane. I guess Bruce made the right choice after all."

"Hmm?" Dick frowned. "... how did you find me?"

Babs sighed. "Don't tell anyone I told you this, okay? Bruce put a tracer in you while you were in surgery for the gunshot wound."

"... What?"

"It was to keep you _safe_. A last resort. For something exactly like this."

"_What_?"

"Look, you're just lucky Bruce is tied up in Bolivia at this very moment because that's giving Tim time to erase and replace the tracer data for tonight," she hissed. "You almost blew it completely."

"Blew what? Am I getting grounded for three lifetimes now?"

"No, Batman called. He's ... he's putting you back in the field to infiltrate Baby Face's gang. We need another set of eyes. You're on a case, Dick."

"Oh," Dick did his best to remain cool, but his heart almost broke his ribs. "That's nice."

"Come on, let's go. Before this gets any worse," Babs led him out by the wrist impatiently, mumbling something about if Bruce knew where she found him he'd bolt Dick's room shut under her breath.

But as Robin climbed on the bike behind her, wrapped his arms around her waist, and let the wind ruffle his hair on the way home, he honestly didn't care too much either way.

Because sneaking out?

Dick suppressed a grin.

_Totally worth it._


	25. Part II: And Now the Kingdom Comes

_So I'm alive! I haven't given up by a long shot, and I actually have the chapter after next totally finished. I really want to get as far as I can before the show starts up again. So sorry for the inordinately long wait. Not much farther before we return to Timelines #2 and #3, which will be told in tandem, so THEY'LL go fast. Fun times!_

_Obviously, Season 2 has changed a ton of stuff, but I'll have to stick to the decisions I've already made - namely that Jason and Tim are older than Dick by a couple of years. There's one other change I'm going to make, and that's that in Timeline #2, Wally didn't actually meet Bart. I literally only have to delete a "yet" and one other line to make this happen, but it gives me a solution to what I like to call my "effing Bart problem."_

* * *

><p><strong><strong>And N<strong>**ow ****the ****Kingdom ****Comes****

**The Story So Far:** Nightwing went back in time to save the team from danger during a Yukon mission in April of 2011 to confiscate an energy crystal that could power a dangerous ray gun.

He witnessed "himself" help the when he was Robin several years before. However, although Nightwing did his best to recreate the circumstances of the mission when he was there, things did not go as planned. After the mission ended, he decided to go visit to Wally. During his visit, he inadvertently revealed his identity and the fact that he's a time traveller.

He also discusses some of the theories he has about how the time travel may work, and suggests that there are actually multiple time lines created when anyone time travels. He suspects that there was at least one timeline that occurred before his timeline as Robin, since there would need to be a reason for the Nightwing he saw to travel back in time. He thinks that things must have been really bad in this timeline to justify something as dangerous and extreme as time travel.

He also reveals one other sliver of the future: he and Wally are together, and Wally dies.

Hoping not to change or mess up the timeline any more, he doesn't divulge any more concrete information. He returns to the future - which may or may not exist, since he's changed the past.

Once he steps into the light of the time travelling portal, the story recounts that first "really bad" timeline - Timeline #1.

In Timeline #1, all of the team was killed during the Yukon mission except for Dick, and the Light later used the energy crystal to destroy The Watchtower and kill half the League. In a world robbed of half its heroes, members of the Light have divided and conquered the Earth, and chaos reigns - particularly in Gotham. Since the mission, Dick has become increasingly unstable, suffering blackouts under stress in which he hallucinates that his friends are still alive.

Dick woke up on the roof of Wally West's house on the anniversary of Wally and the team's deaths. He had a horrible wound in his side, but on his way home, he slipped into Wally's room and took a picture of he and his best friend.

In the last chapter, Dick's frustrated at being excluded from the missions his friends are on, but is feeling better, so he accepts it. However, when Jason throws away his latest monstrosity of an experimental costume, Dick's attracted to the blue that covered his arms and shoulders. When he takes it up to his room to tailor it, he gets a visit from an old friend and some sewing lessons. Dick's recovering but still deeply depressed, so a few months later, ghost!Wally tries to cheer Dick up by taking him to the circus where he inadvertently forces Dick to face some old, deep fears, as well as feelings for Wally, much to the speedster's surprise.

The good news to end good news, though, is that when Babs finally chases him down at the circus, she says that Bruce is letting him back on a mission. He's been working on it ever since ...

* * *

><p><strong>Timeline #1 (Robin #1)<br>****Eight Months Later  
><strong>**July 28th, 2013  
><strong>**Gotham City, CT  
><strong>**The Chicken or The Egg**

Dick pretended to wobble on his pink stilettos as he navigated the thrumming club floor, a drink in each hand. Technicolor spotlights bathed the dancers in a hallucinogenic palette on the floors Penguin's hottest new nightclub, The Chicken or the Egg.

Months and months of covert recon since the night of the circus put Dick on this dance floor, elbowing his way through the hot crowd in a turquoise mini and sparkly silver shirt. He glanced back in Babs's direction behind the bar where she'd made each of his martinis: one dry and one very, very wet … in that it had no gin at all. That was his, of course.

The dry one? That was for Two-Face's second in command: Tally Man.

Honestly, Dick should have been the one behind the bar dispensing drinks instead of Babs while she played girlfriend. It was easier to get in with the club crowd as girls, of course, and Dick was the only other one on the team still young enough to really rock a mini, but he was supposed to be back up. The plan had been for her to work her way up the ranks of skeezy dudes in Two-Face's inner circles as a moll, so to speak, gaining the trust of the henchmen until they dropped a nugget of info on a strange tech smuggling ring that had infiltrated Gotham lately.

Emphasis on the strange.

In Bolivia, Batman had busted what he thought was a drug ring making its way to Gotham through Two-Face's connections, but the merchandise was anything but.

Because everything they smuggled was completely legal.

Overclocked desktops for gaming, LCD monitors … really, really high end computers. Parts for ultra-powerful guns … paintball guns. MRI equipment.

But the sheer volume would have attracted attention and so, apparently, secrecy was paramount, and Batman thought it highly suspect. Dick was inclined to agree. Otherwise, honestly, Gotham had been quiet. Too quiet.

Legal tech smuggling seemed to be the only game in town.

But that left plenty of time for them to cozy up to Two-Face's gang. In an unfortunate mix-up, though, one night the creepy Tally Man decided he preferred tall, dark-haired, rather androgynous girls over cute little redheads. Dick wasn't thrilled, but he wasn't one to turn down a case. Or a performance.

So here he was.

One particularly sloshed patron tripped over his girlfriend's feet and tumbled backwards into Dick; the acrobat instinctually dodged, drinks juggled upright.

He didn't spill a drop.

"Heeey, _gurl _nice save," shouted another of the drunk's friends, letting his gaze slide down Dick, over his giant tinted sunglasses, silver sequined tank, to the turquoise mini-skirt that just covered his ass.

_Crap_. Right. He was supposed to be drunk. The brunet tittered and shook his head, the bangs on his wig falling over his eyes.

"J-just lucky I guess." He reached up to brush his bangs away and, pretending to forget the drink in his hand, let it slosh out of the glass all over the guy at his feet. "Whoops!"

"What the _hell_? Watch it, bitch," the sloppy blonde slurred as he lurched to his feet.

The friend laughed, pushed the blond back into the throng, and threw an arm around Dick's shoulders. "No worries, baby, he had it coming." He drew in close. His breath smelled like cheap beer; his red silk shirt like cigarettes. "I think the thing _I_ have coming is you. What do you say?"

_Ugh_. Dick batted his eyelashes and did his best to refrain from sneering. "Well, I'm not sure my _date_ would appreciate that much."

The skeezy guy's gaze followed the incline of his head toward a darkened corner of the club where three overly well-dressed gentleman leaned over a table, whispering conspiratorially. One in a tall black top hat caught Dick's eye across the room, and he winked back. The clubber went a little pale - the three men were easily recognizable as Two-Face's inner circle, and the the one in the formal robes and hat was Two-Face's second in command and sharp-shooter: Tally Man.

Red shirt's hands flew up defensively, gingerly pushing Dick away. "Y-yeah babe, nice seeing you. Give your sweetie my regards."

"Will do," Dick giggled as he navigated the throng again in the direction of the small booth. He discreetly caught Babs's eye as he passed the bar: she sent him a saucy wink and air kiss … and then noticed the missing drink. An eyebrow raised in warning reminded him to check the one remaining drink in his hand. He took a sip. He'd spilled the _alcoholic _one. As he turned back toward the bar to replace the drink, though, one of Tally Man bodyguard's cut him off.

"Hey, Tally Man wants you back. The Big Boss is coming, and he's gonna show you off. I'll make sure you get back there without any interference," he growled in the direction that the clubber had run in.

"But our drin -"

"No worries, sweetie, you seem plenty liquid, and so we'll just give that one to the man," he grinned as he plucked the drink from the brunet's hand and wrapped an arm around his shoulders.

_Crap__crap__crap__._ He couldn't give Tally Man the _virgin _martini Babs had secretly made for him.

"'Kay," he giggled again to mask his anxiety and stumbled back to the table with the guard. Maybe if he pretended to be drunk enough he could just blame it on not paying attention. In front of … the Boss.

Everything Dick had told him this was big. They'd been working forever to get where they were in Two-Face's mysterious smuggling ring, and he was about to blow it because he couldn't hold his liquor.

Two-Face had already joined the table by the time they returned, and Tally Man's flamboyant purple robes shifted to reveal his signature silver revolvers at his hips.

"Ahhh, there she is," Tally Man's toothy grin glittered in the strobe lights. "Told you she was pretty, didn't I?" He wrapped one long, gloved hand around Dick's waist and dragged him unceremoniously into his lap.

Two-Face narrowed his eyes and grunted noncommittally. "Where'd you dig up this one?"

"Oh, you know," Tally Man leared as he ran one thumb over the handle of his infamous silver revolver and the other through Dick's hair. "Here and there."

Two-Face snorted. "Well, which is it? Can't conduct business if I don't know."

Tally Man shifted uncomfortably. "She's clean," he said quietly. "Look, she brought you a drink."

Dick swallowed as Tally Man pushed the virgin martini toward Two-Face.

"Hmm," he mumbled as he took a sip and frowned. "Is this on _your _tab?" he asked the hitman.

"Of course."

"They're skimping on the alcohol," Two-Face growled, the left side of his face contorting with anger. "Who made this?"

"I - I don't -" Tally Man stuttered, glaring at Dick.

"I don't _remember_," the brunet interrupted, slurring his sentence. _Please__, __please __buy __that __I__'__m _that _sloshed_.

"It was the redhead, Boss," the guard interrupted, cocking his head toward Babs. "She's new."

"Well," Tally Man grinned while he unsnapped one of his guns from his shiney silver holsters. "Would you like me to fire her?"

Dick's palms went slick with cold-sweat, and his fingers inched toward his large, chunky fake diamond earring. He didn't want to risk detection of the comm's signal, but …

Two-Face hummed quietly, rolling his quarter through the top of his fingers. "Okay." He balanced the coin on his thumb and forefinger.

Dick _wasn__'__t _going to give Babs a fifty-fifty chance of getting out of there and twisted the base of his earring. Babs's head snapped in his direction as the coin spun through the air and landed … smooth face up.

The acrobat breathed a sigh of relief, and he flipped off the SOS.

"I think a suspension is in order."

_What__?_

Two-Face nodded in Tally Man's direction, and the hitman grinned as he pulled the trigger. The few seconds warning was all Babs needed, though, to duck as the bullets shattered the bottles above her head. The music screeched to a halt and the dancers stared at the leaking, broken bottles. Tally Man chuckled as a soaked, pale Babs peeked above the bar. The other girls clustered around her protectively and led her away, presumably to the break room. After a few moments, the club beat started up again, everyone shrugged and returned to dancing.

Dick stared after her in shock, and Two-Face glared at him. "What's the matter with you, girly?"

"Huh?" the brunet went back to fiddling with the earring anxiously. "S-sorry, I just never …" he lied, his voice maybe half-an-octave higher than it even should be, "I mean I …"

"If this one can't stand the heat," Two-Face glared at Tally Man, "get her out of the kitchen."

Tally Man's eyebrows pinched in annoyance. "Yeah, of course. Why don't you go get us some better drinks while the big boys talk, hmm?" He pushed Dick off his lap. "And take your time."

_Crap_.

He stumbled a little, unsteady on his feet for real this time as the bouncer led him back toward the bar. _Crap__, __crap _**crap**. He subtly ripped off the earring with the comm and dropped it at the base of the table before following the bouncer. With some luck - _a lot of luck_ - it would catch at least snippets of their conversation.

_Well__, __maybe __if __I __come __back __with __drinks __I __can __at __least __pick __up __the __comm __before __they __kick __me __out __for __good_.

The bar was unmanned, though - probably the other bartenders weren't interested in getting shot. He glanced back over his shoulder. No hope of even lip reading the goons at the table; the writhing mass of dancers completely obscured the table.

_Crap __again_.

The brunet flopped onto a barstool, head in hands, and groaned.

"Hey there, bangs," a voice drawled behind him, "bad night? Maybe I can make it better."

"Look, jerk," Dick growled. "I'm really not in the mood for -"

But the last half of his sentence dropped away as he spun around and met green eyes, red hair, and a quirky smirk.

_Wally_.

It felt like an eternity since the circus. Dick was starting to think he'd really gotten over his ... that Wally wasn't coming back. The speedster slouched casually against the bar, sleeves on a fitted dark blue button down rolled to his elbows, ankles crossed at the bottom of black jeans that were maybe a little _too _fitted for his own good. His smile widened for a tick at Dick's shocked face, but his expression faded to serious as he glanced at Two-Face's table.

"You're supposed to be over there, aren't you?"

The acrobat sighed and pinched his nose. Now may not be the best time to hang out with his imaginary best friend. "Yeah."

Wally reached over the bar, snatched up a toothpick and skewered an olive. "Kind of short-staffed, isn't it?"

"Yeah." Dick was pretty sure that he wasn't actually referencing the bar that night, but the tiny reconnaissance team they had. It was _supposed _to be a slow night at the club, and Tim and Jason and Bruce had stayed home, trying to piece together the puzzle of another tech delivery they'd intercepted that day. At least Jason wasn't there to give him crap about how great he looked in heels.

The redhead pursed his lips, contemplating the olive before popping it into his mouth. "I want you to slap me."

"... what?"

Wally put on a leer, leaning into Dick's space like he was coming onto him. "I want you to slap me and then cry for good measure, okay?"

The dissonance between Wally's directions and the skeezy tone of his voice was deeply confusing.

"Run to the back bathrooms and lock the door but climb out the window, up the fire escape, over the roof to the other side of the building, and meet me by the delivery boxes. Bananas and stuff. Your performance should buy us some time."

Wally was whispering now, pink lips almost against his ear. He was frozen to the spot, Wally's breath hot against his skin, and he could feel his face start to flush.

"Got that … babe?" the redhead tacked on. Dick nodded dumbly.

A beat passed.

"Uh … you have to back away first, dude."

_Right_.

_This __is __totally __crazy__, __what __are __you __doing__, __Grayson_?

But Dick put on his best indignant face and pushed Wally aside, putting just enough room in between them to crack him hard across the cheek. He put maybe a little too much anger, a little too much frustration into it, because Wally reeled. He ignored the stumbling speedster, though, spun on his heels and stalked away towards the bathroom in the back, hands at his eyes like he was trying to subtly wipe away tears. There were a couple of girls doing make-up at the sink, in the tiny, dingy bathroom, but they were smaller than him, so -

"Get out, sluts," he sobbed hysterically, leaning over the free sink, turning on the water to actually smudge his make-up a little. A good old fashioned tantrum should scare them away long enough for him to get out the window.

"... wha-?" one girl slurred.

"Get out! Get out, _get __out_!" The leggy brunet used his height and to his best advantage, towering over them, mascara running.

They stared dumbfounded for a second, but the plump blond finally said, "Come on, Chaz says he can hook us up with some blow now anyway."

The tan one elbowed him hard at the bottom of his ribs as she made her way out the door: "Christ, what's your problem, bitch."

As soon as the door swung shut behind them, Dick snapped the lock, opened the tiny basement window and wound his way outside. When the he dropped gingerly down from the fire-escape ladder, Wally was leaning against the corner of the building

"Heels are hell," he griped. "How do girls do it? I wish summer Uggs were still in style."

The speedster snorted. "You sure about that?"

"Yeah." Dick adjusted his shimmering silver tank. Wally _hmmed _thoughtfully without taking his eyes off the alley he faced behind the building. The soft beat of the dance music filtered through the walls into the alley.

"So. What's up?"

"Not really sure," he spun to face his friend. "Well, that's not true. I have an idea, but things haven't always panned out the way I thought, so."

"Care to elaborate?"

Wally's reply was cut off by the sound of the back door into the alleyway rattling open. "Yes! Here they are. You have to see where they go -"

Dick peeked forward and spotted a small group of Two-Face's thugs coming out the club door. "How did you -"

"Dude, covertly," Wally hissed, trying to tug the acrobat back into the shadows and around the corner of the building. But one pearlescent heel caught in a crack in the pavement, and he stumbled back against the wall facing the alleyway, and it was too late, because the crew was just moving into their line of sight, and the brunet had the air knocked out of him as the speedster pinned him against the brick wall, and, covering him as best he could, kissed him.

_Oh_.

Tally Man's bouncer gave a low, appreciative whistle as they went by.

Dick did his best to keep one eye on them as they made their way down toward the warehouses – _god __Wally__'__s __lips __were __warm_ - around the docks - _and __his __tongue __was __really __talented_ - behind the – he shuddered and just as he was about to moan into his best friend's mouth, Wally broke away and turned around: "Are they gone? You see where they went?"

He nodded as he watched the last one disappear into the warehouse closest to the club: "Warehouse 4A …"

The redhead grinned. "_Perfect_."

"What … why?" The brunet wasn't just talking about the warehouse. His lips still stung in the best way from the last couple of minutes.

"I, ah, just made your life a lot easier," Wally stumbled over his words. "Trust me? I'm sorry – that was purely, uh, professional … "

The speedster still hadn't moved his hands from the small of Dick's back, and the acrobat finally noticed that he had his fingers curled into the redhead's hair. He couldn't take his eyes off his lips, red and a little swollen and _so __beautif_–

"To opportunities lost," the brunet heard himself whisper, and he pressed his back against the rough brick wall again, dragging the redhead with him. Wally followed eagerly with a slight gasp of surprise and a light, needy moan. Dick sucked his tongue into his mouth, soft and wet and insistent; when he nipped on it, Wally growled against his lips and ran a hand firmly over his ass and down the back of his thigh; the acrobat groaned low, ignoring the grit of the brick as he tossed his head back against the wall; the speedster surged into him harder, scraping his nails down the pantyhose to his knees – _was __it __bad __he __hoped __Wally __would __leave __runs__?_ – and now his mouth and teeth were on his neck, sucking on his pulse point and it shouldn't feel like - like _heaven_ and – _oh boy__ –_

Dick pushed him away. "I, uh … th-this isn't right."

Wally's eyelids drifted closed over his emerald irises. "Right."

The Gotham summer was stifling, but the air that flowed over him as Wally backed away felt horribly chill. The speedster awkwardly adjusted Dick's skirt in the back and straightened his own button down.

"No no, it's not …" Dick sighed and chewed on his lower lip guiltily. "I, ah … Babs and I kind of … maybe …"

"Oh," Wally's eyes widened. "_Oh_."

"... yeah. It's not … 100% or anything, but ..."

"Nono," the redhead shook his head vehemently. "No. I - I'm sorry, I didn't know."

"- no, this is on me. And I mean," Dick shook his head like he was readjusting reality, "th-that's sort of beside the point because, really, I don't even _know _if you're, uhm - and, anyway, at the circus, I wasn't sure -"

"Y-yeah, that's … that's ... healthy," Wally's voice cracked a little and he looked studiously at his shoes. "We – you – should get back inside," he mumbled, grabbing Dick's hand and pulling him toward the door. He leaned on it and paused, holding it open to the beat and the lights. "Go on."

The younger adjusted his skirt one more time and stepped past him, glancing toward Tally Man's table. The hitman hadn't been in the group with the bouncer, but it was empty. "I think the coast is clear."

Wally stood awkwardly just inside the door while Dick snuck back to the table and picked up the earring. He turned with a smile to Wally, shooting him a thumbs up - the redhead frowned into the distance and jerked his head: the bouncer was back with the rest of Tally Man's goons.

The redhead caught his wrist when Dick fell into the fold of the dancers and dragged him to the back by one of the enormous speakers. The music cut out for some announcements for last call from the DJ - someone was brave enough to man the bars again, it seemed.

"Hey, just hang out around here until they go again, okay?"

Dick just nodded, hiding awkwardly behind the speaker, "I think we're okay. They don't seem to care where I went. Capricious jerk," he said grinning a little, fastening the earring back to his ear. "Hopefully we'll get what we need on this."

"Yeah," Wally _hmmed_, cocking his head like he was listening to something. "Hey, I - I think I'm gonna leave again in a bit." His freckled cheeks were still flushed, maybe from embarrassment, maybe more - maybe both. "Soooo … since we should blend in and all, I was wondering if I could get a dance before I do? "

The brunet raised one eyebrow. " … really. Since when can you dance?"

Wally's lips twitched. "They have the best teachers in heaven."

The deafening techo picked up again, and Dick shrugged, shouting: "Well, if we stay back here, I guess it wouldn't hurt."

The wrinkle in Wally's brow relaxed as he put his hands on the back of Dick's sequined silver shirt and pulled close without touching, leaning back and giving them just enough room to step side to side with the beat. He grinned and snaked his torso smoothly and slowly back and forth, backing up and putting a hand on Dick's shoulder and spinning him to switch sides.

_Huh_.

Wally went down a little as the song hit a long note, and he guided Dick's hand over and around his head, walking the brunet in a half circle and twisting around to meet him. The acrobat fell into step with him effortlessly with the readhead; it wasn't hard to follow his lead at all, actually.

This wasn't exactly the funky chicken he'd expected.

Wally backed away again, rolling his shoulders in half time, clearly enjoying Dick's impressed expression before glancing over his shoulder. His smile faded as he stared at the crew whispering among themselves across the room, and a pained look crossed his features. He pulled Dick closer, leaning into his ear.

"Hey. So what _have_ you heard about the case, Robs?"

He sighed. "Not that much, actually. Mostly acronyms - ah, the B delivery, that's been mentioned a lot, … the need for "speed," which we think is a big drug ring coming around? Hopefully the comm will -"

Wally's face tightened for a moment, and he grabbed Dick's hand, turning him inward so that his back was to the redhead's chest and his arms crossed over his silver shirt.

"Robin," he whispered so softly that Dick could barely hear him even though his lips were brushing the shell of his ear, "I want you to listen to me very carefully. Anything about that B delivery is your priority. Anything they say about FTLN or a QE matrix, take really close notes, you got it? That's the important stuff -"

The speedster's voice started to buzz in Dick's ear, distorting a little. "Wally - are - are you vibrating?"

"Shh, I don't have much time -" Wally hissed, "and anything, ANYTHING, you hear about speedsters, you drop whatever you're doing and chase that lead down like your life depends on it, okay?"

"Speedsters -" Dick's heart thudded in his chest, "Does it have anything to do you with you?" he whispered.

He could feel Wally smile with a small rueful sigh against his hair. "No. I wouldn't be of much use here. I'm very dead, Dick."

The younger twisted around with a panicked look on his face, "But then how …?"

The redhead dropped Dick's hands and gently ran his now thrumming fingers through his soft black hair, pushing it behind his ear. "Love the bangs, by the way."

The fake earring beeped in the acrobat's hand, and he shivered while he hesitantly tore his eyes away from Wally's.

"Yes, come in?"

"Do you read?" It was Babs. "I'm behind the DJ stage. Batman's been waiting for you; we were supposed to rendezvous the next building over if we got separated. I've been trying to find you for fifteen minutes."

_Aw__, __dammit__._

He craned his neck over the crowd and past the DJ and spotted Babs, leaning against a wall, now in a different dress and a blond wig.

"Sorry, I've been … following a lead on the delivery spot for B, I think."

_That __was __true __enough__. __Talking __to __sources__ … __etc__._

Speaking of sources, Dick turned back toward Wally: "I think that's my cue, KF …"

But the speedster was gone, even though the only way out from behind the speaker was in Dick's direction.

His voice choked a little as he turned back towards Babs. "I-I'll be right there."

And Dick disappeared through the throng himself.


End file.
